Copyright © 2011 Mandy Byrne
First Published in 2011.
By
Smashwords
Chosen Love
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
I would like to thank my cousin Gina Ramsey for her help and patience in explaining computer language and for designing the book cover.
I dedicate this book to all women who need to be heard and believed by others.
CHOSEN LOVE
PROLOGUE
Leaning back in my chair I felt the familiar ache in my back. It reminded me I was over doing things, again.
I had an old jewellery box on my knee, but couldn’t remember where I put the key. I had not opened it for nearly forty years.
I knew what was in the box but I was not sure if I wanted to hunt for the key or to keep the contents locked away. Today I had time to sit and let by gone years talk once more to my mind. It was indeed a rare moment to have time just for my thoughts.
I will soon be sixty, when did my life race away from me? So many things have happened, some wonderful and others I don’t like to think of.
Again I felt the tug of those distant memories and this time I let my mind hold them, usually I stuffed them away, far back in my mind as some things are best left buried. A time my children thought of as yesterday, yes we are yesterday's girls
Life has brought many changes not only in my own family, but in my country too.
We are no longer called Malaya, our country's name changed in the mid sixties after independence. We are now Malaysia and we have prospered and grown. There have been many changes which have melded together and like cherries in a cake I started to pick over them.
This has happened more often of late, thinking back over my life. It must be a sign of old age I thought and laughed - me - getting old, never. I was one of the young modern wives, nothing old about me.
How often other generations must have thought the same thing, we always think it is something new when we are young and only the young could understand.
Strange how memories flood in like a rewound film, I am not one to hark back to the past but the year I turned seventeen, remains so clear in my mind.
CHAPTER ONE
The large conical hat that shaded my eyes, felt heavy on my brow. Sweat and water made my sarong cling to my legs. I hitched it up higher away from the mud of the padi field. Stretching I looked around the water covered field, I was helping to plant the new rice shoots as I had done for several years. Some of the women from the kampong chatted as they slowly and rhythmically made their way across the field. The cool mud felt smooth around my toes and ankles and I knew once I washed my feet they would look soft and clean.
My younger sisters were working some way ahead of me and I could see my mother pushing the green shoots into the muddy layer underneath the water. She was such a quick worker and I felt a pang of guilt. Bending down I tried to go faster - I knew I should at least be ahead of my sisters. For some reason my thoughts today slowed my movements, I kept day dreaming, recalling the love scene from the film South Pacific that I had seen the previous week. A group from the kampong with my older brother had giggled and laughed as we enjoyed our freedom at the pictures in Malacca. I hummed the tune and imagined I was there.
Something caught my eye as I leaned forward and I glanced towards the kampong without stopping my work. Black smoke curled upwards from the huts, I straighten. Fear gripped my stomach like a grasping hand and made me gasp as I remember so well how fire can destroy a village in minutes. It grew into a thick cloud as I watched. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief, smudging mud across my cheeks. Upright I caught the acrid smell of burnt rushes faintly in the wind.
‘Ma. Ma. Look there’s smoke in the kampong,’ I yelled.
My mother raised her head and glanced across the field. The next moment she was slipping and sliding as she stumbled through the mud and water.
'Quick Zinab, call everyone, the kampong is on fire!’ she gasped.
Yelling loudly I followed my mother. The mud sucked at my feet, I fell several times, before I finally dragged myself free of it’s gluttonise hold. Everyone heard my hoarse cries, their wails and screams filled the air as they followed us.
My grandmother was beating at the flames with a rice sack as I ran into the clearing in the centre of the huts. Her face looked like a wizen monkey and her feet were blistered from the hot ashes.
Mother kept shouting, ‘bring water, over here, hurry,’ her cries caused more confusion as buckets were in short supply and we only had wet sacks to beat the flames down, but it was no use.
By this time the fire had devoured the front buildings and licked hungrily at everything in its path. The heat was so intense we backed off, but my Grandmother wouldn’t be told and still flayed at the embers with the heavy wet sack, her efforts became weaker as her strength ebbed. She was desperate to save what she could.
Mother grabbed her arm and physically dragged her away from the flames. I ran to help her, my grandmother struggled frantically. ‘No, let me go, we can save… we can… we can…’ We pulled her clear and she collapsed into a weeping bundle.
The other women gathered around, wide eyed and speechless they stared at their ruined homes, nothing was left. It surprised me how quickly the flames died down once the huts were consumed. Wooden beams lay charred and burnt lumps of black matter that may have been anything were all that remained.
One of the women started screaming hysterically, her arms wrapped around her body as she leaned forward with a rocking motion. My blood ran cold at the sound. Her baby had been inside the hut asleep. The memory of her fat gurgling child came to mind. I had nursed him, a beautiful little boy who smiled at everyone. I stared at the hut and in my imagination I saw the flames licking at him and could imagine his screams. Sick at the thoughts, I shuddered as I watched Mother and the other women drag her away - there was nothing she could do till the ashes were cooler.
Grandmother sat on the ground her thin body swaying and clutched a blackened cooking pot, everything else was gone. I crouched beside her and wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders.
‘Grandma don’t cry. Please don’t cry.’
The shock was setting in and I started sobbing with her. When she saw my tears it seemed to act as a dam to her own and she wiped her blackened face and hugged me close.
‘Don’t cry child, you are safe. Praise God none of us have been killed.’
‘Aunty Julub has lost her baby… he was burnt to death, that dear little boy Oh Grandma why… why has God done this to us… we have lost everything, everything, even my clothes…’ I started sobbing harder.
‘Hush girl, clothes are nothing. Julub will have other babies. Come on now, no more tears.’
She soon regained her composure and was once again in charge. I was not used to seeing her any other way and to see her crying had frightened me as much as the fire. I let her dry my face with her sarong before she tucked it back around her waist. She led me over to the other women.
My mother as the wife of the headman of our kampong, felt it was up to her to get everyone calmed down. She organized supervision for the children and to ward off all their questions she told them to wait till the men came home.
My grandmother allowed me to bath her feet, but we had nothing we could treat the burns with. She refused to be fussed over and in the confusion I soon forgot her pain, my own feelings foremost in my mind.
My insides felt as if they were all shaken up and my arms and legs trembled. I noticed my sisters were also in a similar state, I gathered my youngest sister to me and put my arm around the other but they could feel my shaking and we all felt overcome by our loss as we waited for father to return.
Time has changed the way women react in a crisis now. I think we are more self reliant, but in the sixties, we still felt the men knew best.
The sun slid down bringing some relief from the heat. The rattle of the old bus was a welcome sound. It brought the men home from work, as it did every day at this time.
My father was not a tall man but he walked with purpose and looked important, at least I always thought so. He slowly stepped down off the bus- the sight of him reassured me. Father will fix things I thought, he always does.
For a few moments he gazed at the smouldering pile of ashes. My mother stood in front of him twisting her sarong between nervous fingers as she told him the story, her voice breaking as she told him about Julub’s little boy and tears made clean tracks down her sooty face. My father patted her shoulder and taking his clean white handkerchief from his pocket he wiped her tears. The soot on his hanky reminded me how dirty we all must look.
I realized in later years we were all in shock that day and no one really knew what to do. It was my grandmother who shook his arm and whispered something to him. He looked down at her and nodded, it seemed to stir him into action and he started shouting to the men to douse the embers with water.
Behind the kampong near the padi fields, stood large open sided huts where we dried and stored the rice. My father herded all the women and children into them. He did a head count to make sure we were all there. At last he was satisfied. He squatted down beside Julub and her husband, she was sobbing in a hopeless wailing manner. Nothing could ease her pain at that moment and my father patted her husband on the back and feeling helpless over their loss he straightened and called out to the men to check the hut carefully, meaning if they found the baby’s body to treat it with respect.
My sisters sat beside me, their heads turned this way and that watching the men pouring water on the ashes. Aysha plucked at flakes of soot on her hands her eyes large and sunken. Misha and Kara whispered they were thirsty as if ashamed of having normal needs. I heard them but didn’t know what to do; we had nothing to carry water in. What would father do I wondered? He was very calm and gradually regained his usual composure. That reassured us all. He sent one of my uncles to the nearest phone which was at the shop in the next kampong. Several of the other men went to our nearest neighbours to get some supplies. Many, having seen the smoke, were already standing around leaning on their bikes, eager to know what had happened. Someone came with a pot and ladle and handed out water, it tasted so sweet and revitalised us.
Aunt Ester was very pregnant so it was decided she would stay with our neighbours in their kampong. My uncle Mommand returned and told us he had phoned the insurance firm and they would send an assessor in the morning.
Everyone started talking at once - they were excited, fearful and worried. Many clapped my father on the back and told him he was a good leader. My grandmother muttered under her breath.
‘Huh! That’s not what you said two years ago when he made you all join the fire insurance scheme.’
I remembered that day, just after my fourteenth birthday. The men were grumbling about having to pay the premiums. Fires were common but our kampong had never experienced a big one. Not that I could remember. All our kitchens were built away from the main huts and we had been either careful or lucky till now. When father announced the village must have fire insurance I silently agreed with him.
‘Fire insurance is a must the Tuan Besar at work tells me.’ Father said. He was talking with his brother and I overheard them.
‘It is too expensive Armand the others will never agree to pay five dollars a month.’ His brother argued.
‘Then we must convince them. If this village caught fire nothing would save it. Everyone who wants to live here must contribute.’
Father worked as an accountant for a big import and export company in Malacca. Grandmother always boasted how important he was and would tell us in a theatrical whisper how much money he dealt with every week. According to her the firm could not function without him, so naturally I was very proud to be his daughter.
When my father spoke in that certain tone of voice I knew everyone would do as he asked.. How relieved they were now.
That first night after the fire we all slept uneasily. The mosquitos whined around our ears even with the small fires people lit to keep the worst of the biting insects away. This made the air heavy and smoky, my eyes watered and my throat felt raw.
Julub’s muted sobs reminded us all how lucky we were to have our families in tact, how would I have coped if one of my sisters had perished. Just thinking of it made the tears flow again.
I’d washed the worst of the soot and mud off my body in the river, but my hair was a mess and I moaned and grumbled because I couldn’t get my fingers through it. How vain I was then.
In the midst of all what was going on my father took time to make me a crude comb from a piece of wood. I felt embarrassed for moaning and making a fuss but was pleased that at least I could comb my hair again.
He was such a thoughtful man and very clever. My oldest brother inherited this trait and reminds me of him.
Aysha still had that scared rabbit look which made me feel protective towards her. I sat her between my knees and combed her long tresses, this brought a smile to her worried face and when Aysha smiled I was reminded how dear she was to me. I sighed inwardly. I always wished I could be more like her. She hardly ever made a fuss and was always so good. Grandmother rarely slapped her, whereas I was forever getting a beating for my quick temper. Today I was gentle and loving with the three of them and I could see it pleased my mother - she squeezed my arm in appreciation.
The assessor arrived the next afternoon on a little moped, the sound of which reached our ears long before he did. Father showed him the ruins of our village. For once no one shouted at me to get on with my work. I had nothing to do, which felt strange.
With no home or clothes there was no housework. We had no food, which meant there was nothing to prepare. I luxuriated in the fact that for once no one shouted at me for being lazy.
I should have known better. With a stinging slap, grandmother told me to go up stream and fill the cooking pots she had saved, with water.
‘You are bone idle Zinab. We need hot water to wash our bodies clean but you sit there like a dozy bullock, doing nothing, as usual.’ She scolded.
She was so unfair to me, I gritted my teeth. No matter what happens she always blamed me. We could wash in the river as usual - she just wanted to make me do something, anything rather than sit around, which would never do for my grandmother. Just because I was the eldest girl I was expected to do everything, or at least that’s how it seemed to me then.
Aysha came with me, lugging the heaviest pot while I carried the two smaller ones - our communal water pump was still buried under debris.
‘I sometimes think grandma can’t bear me to rest. Every time I sit still she nags me to be up and doing something.’ I complained.
‘She loves you the best Zinab - you know that. It is just her way- she doesn’t mean anything by it.’ Aysha as usual tried to placate me.
Fine way to treat her favourite granddaughter, I grumbled as I filled the pots from a deep hole in the river.
On our return father were shaking hands with the assessor - smiling and bowing to him.
‘What’s happening Grandma?’ I asked, handing her the pots of water.
‘The assessor can see what has happened and says he will bring emergency food and clothing for us. I think they intend to rebuild the village. Ha! Now everyone will know what a clever son I have.’
How quick she was to share in her son’s glory, a typical mother. I was just relieved to know we would soon have some clothes.
Our neighbours came with food and cooking pots so we could cook a meal. One young man gave me a bar of soap - it made me so embarrassed I wondered if I smelt. Grandmother snorted derogatorily when I told her. She took the soap off me and cut it in half so my uncle could have some.
We were each given a clean sarong, a gift from our neighbouring kampong. She told us to go and wash our dirty ones and spread them on the bushes to dry.
CHAPTER TWO
We had to wait three days before we were given large tents and a pile of mats to sleep on. Our neighbours helped and shared what they could but they were not rich.
Two large trucks rolled into the kampong which the men cleared of debris so the food, tents, cooking stoves and pots and pans could be unloaded. It felt like a feast day. Instead of cooking over charcoal each household was given a kerosene stove. My mother wouldn’t use it at first, it made her nervous. I had used one at school and showed her how easy it was. Soon she was turning it on and off without the worried frown on her face.
Father organized everything. It was gratifying to walk about the kampong and hear people saying how far seeing my father was and they patted my face and hands as if I was also their benefactor. My grandmother waved her hands as if it was nothing when she heard their praises, but I knew she was as happy as me about it all. She reminded me of a bantam hen the way she strutted around full of her own importance - after all she was his mother.
The tents were erected near the padi fields to enable the work on the new buildings to get under way. They were quite large and could sleep eight people, best of all they were netted so we could roll the sides up but keep out the insects. All the men in the village worked at the same place as father. I don’t know if father arranged it or if the Tuan Besar was just showing compassion, but they were given every afternoon off for a month, while they helped to rebuild the entire village. Father repaid this kindness by bringing work home to do in the evenings and everyone went to work an hour earlier, father insisted on it.
The church in our kampong, built by my father several years before, had to be the first building erected. Father felt this was important - I heard a few grumbles but no one argued with him. We were all Christians and father took his religion very seriously. His father had been converted when he was a young man and since then he made sure the whole village followed his example. My father said prayers every evening and he carried on this tradition and in our evening prayers he thanked God for his goodness.
I found that rather strange. ‘How could you thank God for letting your village burn down?’ I asked him.
‘Zinab it is not for us to question God,’ he rebuked. ‘God has given us food and shelter and soon we will have a new village and every house will have a metal roof. Now that is a big improvement on the old basher reeds and will be much better. So you see it was God’s way of improving our life.’ He said earnestly.
I still wasn’t so sure about that. Poor Julub lost her baby in the fire. I wondered if God had wanted a tiny baby for his own maybe. Life was hard to understand when you were only sixteen and I was puzzled at my father’s words. I opened my mouth to ask him about this but a sharp look, from my grandmother and I desisted. She didn’t like us children to question things.
When my grandfather become a Christian it had been for two reasons, or so my grandmother told me later. She said her husband had found Jesus and his job with the firm he worked at the same time. This firm still employed father. In my grandfathers time work was hard to find and when the firm offered the whole village employment on the condition all the people employed had to be Christians, till then I don’t think we had any real religion, just the old ways and beliefs which my grandmother seemed to incorporate into our Christian life.
‘Grandma how did grandfather manage to convince the whole village to convert?’ I asked as I pounded garlic for the dish she was cooking.
‘He had the Lord on his side girl. When he explained how God wanted them all to be Christians and everyone would have a job they were only too willing to change. It was a wonderful thing to have work and also to be a Christian.’
My grandmother would smile that knowing smile of hers, the one she used when she thought something was crazy or funny. God certainly did work in mysterious ways, I acknowledged soberly.
Every building was roofed with new sheet metal except the church. I heard father arguing with the builders about it, but for some reason it had to be done with basher reeds, as it was not a swelling place, only homes could have tin roofs.
The church with the basher leaf roof was soon finished and looked very fresh and clean. Grandma and several of the older women sat weaving rush mats to put on the floor. It gave them something to do as they watched the men and us younger women help with the rebuilding. My hands became quite harden with grasping wood and passing it up to the men.
Some of the older boys teased me and sent me on errands that made me look silly. How was I to know there was no such thing as a left handed hammer? It caused much laughter and I stalked off in a huff. At the same time I enjoyed the banter and my days were full and enjoyable.
Several times I caught my grandmother looking at me, her mouth in a straight line. Was she angry, I wondered, but she didn’t say anything so I relaxed.
Father asked the local priest to come and consecrate the new building and we all put on our best clothes and the women cooked a small pig over a fire. The young boys were given this job and took it in turns to turn the spit.
Although the priest blessed it, he said it was only a prayer house, not a church. I could see father was unhappy about that, he had hoped this time it would be made a real church but he didn’t argue, not with the priest. We still held services in it each week and once a month the priest came and held mass there, which I felt was good enough..
I couldn’t understand why he was disappointed, we all prayed in it and held our baptisms in it and even weddings, so it was no different really.
My three older brothers, two of whom worked with my father were still living at home. They were very bossy to us girls now they were working men and when I argued with them over chores they used to do but now I was expected to take on. Grandmother would tell me off and push me out of the room. It seemed so unfair and I wished I could get a job and be given such respect.
My eldest brother Raman, attended Kuala Lumpur University and no longer lived at home .He was studying to be a doctor and we were all very proud of him, especially my mother. He had completed his first three years and was currently doing an internship at a big hospital in Singapore. His letters home were read aloud to everyone, even the neighbours. He was the first man in our family and the kampong to go to University and mother was so happy and proud it rubbed off on to us. When he came home for holidays we all rushed to do his every wish. i didn't feel used then because he was so special it was a privilege, and it annoyed the younger brothers which made me do it all the more.
After me, came three more girls, much to my mothers annoyance, she would have liked more sons. I am heartily glad she had girls, as otherwise I would have had to do everything, being the eldest girl was bad enough, but to be the only girl, would have been awful.
Aysha is my best friend as well as my sister. She has beautiful long wavy hair that she can nearly sit on. My hair is so thick and wiry and from somewhere I inherited a mass of curls. When I tried to let it grow like Aysha’s I looked like a wild woman. Grandmother gave up in the end and cut it shoulder length. She reckoned it took longer to untangle it then it did to do a weeks washing.
When Aysha was born, I was only eleven months old Grandmother told us how weak and small she was and so tiny mother kept her in a shoebox wrapped in cotton wool. I loved to listen to her stories about us all when we were young.
Mother had been determined Aysha would live. She would feed her first, then me. I was a greedy child by all accounts and grandmother said I would have taken all her milk if I had been fed first. (You can see how she always undermined me!)
Aysha to this day has remained small and delicate. I am just the opposite I have wide hips and knew one day I would be a good mother. Grandmother said they are child-bearing hips, not something a vain, modern young woman wanted to hear, but she was right.
Grandmother said my mother was silly to try and rear such a sickly baby, as Aysha. She thought one baby at the breast was enough, but I am glad my mother didn’t listen - life would have been very different for me without my sister.
After Aysha, came my sister Misha, who is ten years old. I loved her, but the age gap meant I had to be her big sister and demand the respect she didn’t always give me. Sometimes she was very stubborn but mostly she was a rather serious girl and she loved school. I could never understand why she wanted to spend hours over her books, but she was strange that way.
I shake my head at this memory because Misha became the first girl in our village to attend University. She won a scholarship and went on to do law. How proud we were of her, even when she converted to Islam we knew it would not change her and it didn’t. She was always a serious young woman and the restrictions it put on her didn’t seem to make any difference to the woman she became.
Our baby sister Kara was seven and so cute we all loved her. Kara has my wild hair but Aysha’s gentle nature. Everyone adored her and she was very spoilt, at least according to grandmother, but even she succumbed to her charms. She got away with just looking after the chickens and she was my father’s favourite along with Aysha, she could do no wrong and for some reason none of us minded.
It is hard to imagine her then becoming the mother of seven boys and she ruled them with the same love we were all given by our parents.
The following month I turned seventeen and was already finished with school. I liked school but was no great scholar and my mother encouraged me to stay home to help look after the family. The nuns who taught us had been very strict, even worse than grandmother. They nagged me just as she did. I did think I might go to work in the city and be independent but somehow it didn’t eventuate as mother needed help. Mother is always busy - some times I wondered how she did everything.
We had three goats, a buffalo and a large cat that was very lazy. She expected us to feed her scraps when really she should have kept the kampong free from vermin. Under the house we had cages of chickens and it was my youngest sister job to clean them and feeding them. Sometimes she let them all out, to go for a walk, she said. How I hated it when she did this, it took hours to round them up again.
I was very lucky to have such a good loving family, as my grandmother was always reminding me. My parents were strict but very caring and worked hard to give us a better life.
Father always dressed in a shirt and tie when he went to work and he kept his fingernails clean and short. When I get married I used to declare, I want a husband just like my father. Grandmother said I would love my husband and look up to him no matter what he did, but I had my dreams.
Sometimes when I looked at my mother I wondered what she was like at my age. She was still very beautiful, with large dark eyes and lovely high cheekbones. By nature she was quiet, a bit like Misha, but she worked all day long and I know my grandmother thought she was a good wife. She was slightly taller than my father and she tried to disguise her height by sagging at the knees when she stood near him. I wanted a man to be like my father only taller. I am nearly as tall as my mother and what young woman didn’t dream of a tall handsome husband.
I no longer played with the older boys in the village. One time we would play rattan ball and I was very good at it. Sometimes we would fight to keep the ball and I remember how different their bodies felt to girls, harder and somehow more exciting. When I was thirteen and started my periods Mother told me I could no longer play with the boys because now I was a young woman. Grandmother said no more touching and playing rattan ball. At first I resented it but then noticed the boys also became different and didn’t attempt to be rough. I noticed they looked at me in a way that made me feel warm and soft, even powerful as if I knew something they didn’t, I was becoming sexually aware I guess. This was growing up and it happened to all the young women so I wasn’t the first. I even felt superior when it became Aysha’s turn to be told and she didn’t seem to mind in the least, but then she didn’t play games with the boys either.
CHAPTER THREE
I remember so clearly the day the kampong was finally completed, we celebrated with a big party. Everywhere looked so fresh and clean and when it rained not one house leaked. It was very noisy though and you had to shout to be heard above the rain drumming on the tin.
Each house was built on the same site as before - every house had three or four rooms inside and a kitchen. All were elevated to keep out snakes and animals, it also enable us to catch any breezes. Grandmother was upset about the kitchen being inside because she feared another fire. The assessor explained with the new kerosene stoves, fires rarely happened.
Each house had a tap in the kitchen and a washroom come bathroom built ground level with a cement floor and a toilet in one corner. This was a great improvement, as we no longer had to queue up to use the communal one. Grandmother still liked to wash our clothes on the riverbank but mother uses her washboard and a large tin bath in the washroom.
She rarely argues with grandmother, but she saw no reason to carry everything down to the river when she could do it in her own home. I think the older women liked to talk and gossip while they washed and they enjoy doing it the traditional way.
A veranda girthed every house and it was the coolest place to sit in the evenings. Father paid extra to have a ceiling fan installed in the main room of our house. Every room had an electric light that we just switch on at the wall, no messy lamps or dangerous candles - everyone liked the lights.
Our village was much admired by our neighbours, we were so modern. Our goats and buffalo we still tethered nearby, but far enough away so we did not have to put up with their smell and the flies. Sometimes it was my job to take their muck and spread it on our padi fields. My brother Johari was meant to be in charge of the animals but since he started work he often paid me two dollars and asked me to do it. I hated doing it, but the two dollars was very acceptable.
There was some money left over from the insurance when all the houses were rebuilt as we had done all the labouring and it saved on costs. Father built a small hut and we all wondered what it was for. It was too small to live in and was taller with a small platform inside. It had no walls but the roof came very low to the ground at the sides, father refused to tell us what it was for.
My father owned a car, because he had such an important job, he was the only man in the village to own one. It was rather old and made a lot of noise when he drove it, but it was a car and as such added to our status. That night he brought a large cardboard box home on the back seat. He got two men to lift it out and set it on the platform in the small hut. He made sure we were all gathered around before he opened it. We gasped with surprise. Inside was a television.
Father said we were now a very modern village because we had electricity and because of that he was able to buy a television.
Every evening we watched some of the American programmes on it. My favourites were Star Trek and Lassie. It was so good to gather with everyone around the television and to see how other cultures lived. America was amazing and we thought the houses so grand. Sometimes there was a film on and I felt it was as good as going to the cinema.
Our neighbours from nearby kampongs also come over to watch, but they had to stand out in the clearing and sometimes there were as many as fifty people viewing our television.
Only father was allowed to touch it and if he was late home we all become impatient. I thought he should teach me how to operate it, but grandmother said it was a man’s job and not for us woman to operate the televisions. Grandmother was so old fashioned.
Three months later as mother and I were washing the clothes talking as women do about all sorts of things. I, as usual did most of the chattering, my mother rarely spoke inanely and I loved to talk. She scarcely ever told us off or got angry, grandmother did all that sort of thing.
Suddenly she straightened up and leaned on the tub as she squatted beside it. ‘Zinab do you feel ready to run your own house and be a wife?’
I stared at her for a moment - I had not expected her to say this. A great feeling of excitement surged through me. Did I want to be married? I looked at my mother to see if she was serious. She rubbed the clothes across the washboard and applied more sunlight soap.
‘Are you asking me if I want to get married ma?’ I said. She nodded and my stomach knotted with excitement.
‘You are now seventeen and I think you are mature enough to run a house and be a good wife, don’t you?’
‘I think so ma… to be honest I have not thought much about it. Do you have a husband in mind for me?’ My mind was running riot, of course I had thought about getting married and often, what young girl doesn’t. Had she been looking for a husband for me already I wondered.
‘Your grandmother says you are ready for marriage. She has spoken with a marriage broker and she expects to hear back from her soon. If you don’t feel ready child, we won’t force you.’
I was touched that she loved me so much. I must admit that lately I was restless and when young men looked at me I felt confused at times and sort of funny inside.
Most of the young men in our village were related to us and we had grown up together. Mother assured me it would be someone from another village, much to my relief. There was no way of meeting other young men confined as I was to home most of the time. Some of the other young girls worked and it was easier for them to meet and choose suitable young men. Matchmakers were not as popular as they had been in my mother’s time but were still used from time to time. I was happy to leave it to grandmother and mother to choose a husband for me. They knew men much better than I did and mother knew I want a man who was taller than me - who preferably worked in an office. Grandmother told me I am too fussy, but I knew mother would have a say and I trusted her.
Several weeks passed before mother told me they had chosen a young man called John Ishmael Laki. My heart thumped loudly in my chest at just the thought of him.
‘He is a schoolteacher and a Christian. I am pleased he is older than you, he is twenty-five, but grandmother feels you need a husband who is older and wiser. He is coming to visit next week and you can see how well you like each other.’ Mother explained.
Grandmother felt it was irrelevant that we met before we were married. She visited the family and knew all about him - in her mind he was most suitable. I was glad mother insisted I be allowed to meet him. What if I hated him, or he didn’t like me?
I kept trying to make grandmother tell me about him, but she was infuriating and said I would find out once I was married. Mother on the other hand promised me if I didn’t like him I could say no, grandma sniffed, she thought we were given too much choice in these matters.
The subject of marriage made me the focus of a great deal of interest among the young women in our kampong. It was our main topic of conversation. Many were impressed because he was a teacher and although I didn’t admit it, so was I. In bed at night I whispered his name over and over. Aysha giggled and said I spoke about him in my sleep.
The first evening he was expected to visit it poured with rain and I began to doubt he would ever come in such awful weather, but he did. Father collected him from the bus stop on the main road and drove him home.
I could hardly bear to look at him in case I was disappointed. Sitting with my eyes downcast I waited in the main room of our house. I saw a shiny pair of black shoes and slowly raised my eyes and stood up.
He was taller than me! This was the first thing I noticed and we shyly bowed then shook hands. His hand felt soft and I noticed his clean fingernails - he held my hand very gently in his for a few seconds.
‘I am pleased to meet you Zinab. I am John Ishmael Laki.’ He said in a pleasant but slightly hoarse sounding voice. Was he nervous I wondered?
‘I am pleased to meet you John Ishmael. Would you care to sit down and take some tea or a cold drink? Let me get you a towel to dry your face. The rain is awful tonight.’ My voice sounded low and steady.
Grandmother for once gives me an approving look. Feeling more confident I smiled at him. I was beginning to feel hopeful. His eyes crinkled at the corners as his lips curved into a friendly smile. My heart leapt because I could tell he approved of me and I was attracted to his good looks.
I busied myself taking a beer from the ice chest and put it on a small tray with a glass. I grabbed a towel from the wicker basket and flung it over my shoulder. On a small plate I put some fresh cucumber and almonds with some sticky dates and presented the tray and towel to him. Father asked for a beer and I rushed to get him one, glad of something to do.
Father and John Ishmael talked about politics and the economy and I sat and listened. It sounded so manly, I thought, to know these things. There were great changes occurring in our country at that time 1964, only I was not really aware of them. It did not worry me that the British were moving out and the country was going to become totally independent.
Father was not too happy about it as the government had bought the firm he worked for and he wondered how this would affect him.
I glanced at John Ishmael several times - he really was nice looking. His face was oval shaped and his nose neither large nor small. For a man his eyebrows were drawn delicately across his brow showing off his large dark eyes. His mouth had full soft looking lips and when he smiled his teeth were even and white. His build was slender and I noticed his hands looked soft skinned with long tapering fingers
After an hour the rain stopped and John Ishmael asked me to show him the kampong. I felt slightly embarrassed to go outside alone with him, yet eager to know more about him. Every house was practically the same but we walked around the sodden clearing of the kampong and I showed him our new, very modern homes.
He was very impressed with the television and the fact we had a large communal refrigerator. It was mainly used for cold drinks and I offered him one, but he declined.
‘Zinab I am a teacher as you know, and soon I will be starting a new job as a junior master at a boy’s school, about twenty miles from here.’ He told me.
‘That is something to be proud of. Are you looking forward to it? I hoped I was saying the right things - it was hard to be normal with someone you wanted to impress. If I had only known how shy and hesitant my future husband felt that evening I would have been more confident. He told me years later he thought I was very friendly and it helped him to be less shy.
‘Yes. Well…when I start working there. You see I um… will get a house if I am married, it goes with the job. What I am trying to say is I won’t have to live at home with my parents once I am married. If you marry me we would have a house of our own. That’s if you find me to your liking.’ His voice trailed off.
I didn’t know what to say at first. No one had ever asked me to marry them before. It was wonderful to know I would not have to live with a mother-in-law and be under her eye all the time, but I didn’t want him to think I didn’t want to live with his parents either. I mean, I didn’t even know his mother, so I had no idea if I would like her or not.
‘I am honoured you would ask me John Ishmael and I find you very pleasing. It is much nicer to start married life on our own, not that I would not like to live with your mother… but you know what I mean.’
I looked up into his face to make sure I had not offended him and was relieved to see him smile.
‘Young married couples should not have the added pressure of in-laws to worry about, don’t you agree?’ he asked with a shy grin that drew an answering smile from me. It dawned on me I was saying yes to this marriage proposal and for a moment felt panicky. I wondered if I should encourage him, but he looked so happy and somehow I just wanted to keep him that way.
‘I agree. I just hope I can look after you to your liking with no mother to guide me as to your likes and dislikes. What sort of things do you like to eat?’
Our conversation became less stilted and we laughed together over some of the things he liked and didn’t like. I was naive enough to think because we liked similar food that we had a lot in common, how much I had to learn about being married.
It felt good to walk around talking and getting to know one another. All too soon my father called us back – it was time for him to catch the bus home.
He shook my hand and I was sure he held it longer than the first time.
‘I am very happy to meet you Zinab and I hope you will come for a visit to my home soon.’ He said softly.
I felt my cheeks glow. He liked me, my head sung with happiness and I nodded, too tongue tied to say anything.
As we lay on our bed mat, under a shared mosquito net, I told Aysha all about him and relived every moment a hundred times. A gentle snore reached my ear - Aysha was asleep. I was too excited and it was hours before I dozed off.
My girl friends crowded around me when I went to the river the next day. None of them had any need to bath in the river now but we often did, just so we could talk. My friends laughed, as Aysha told them all how soft and gentle I became when I was introduced to a man. I splashed her with water but the others wanted to know every detail of our meeting and I was only too happy to tell all.
As always when ever I was enjoying myself, my grandmother would interrupt and call me to do some chore or other. I dried my hair on my sarong and twisted it up on top of my head. My clean sarong I wrapped around my chest above my breasts and wandered back to the house. As usual some of the older boys stood around hoping to see parts of me they had never seen, but I was adept at removing one sarong and pulling the other on in unison.
Grandma jerked her head towards the house and walked off to get rice from the store house. Mother called to me as I walked up our steps to the veranda. She wanted to show me how to make wadgit and we talked quietly together as we rolled the rice in the sticky toffee.
‘Did you like John Ishmael, my daughter?’
Her face was serious and her eyes searched mine.
‘Oh yes ma. He was very nice. I thought him very handsome too. He tells me when he marries he will be given a house by the school. Ma that means if we marry, I won’t have to live with his family, aren’t I lucky?’
As I spoke it dawned on me that my mother had lived all her married life with my grandmother and before he died my grandfather. Would she think me odd not to want to start our married life living with in laws?
She dried her hands on a cloth and took my face between them. I could feel her rough skin scratch my cheek as she kissed my forehead.
‘You are very lucky and I hope you will be very happy. On Sunday father is taking us all to visit John Ishmael’s family, you may wear a dress if you like.’
‘But grandmother says…’ I floundered.
‘I have said you may wear a dress Zinab. You look lovely in a dress and that yellow one with the little short-sleeved jacket will look very elegant. John Ishmael Laki is a modern young man and I want him to know you are a modern young woman.’
I felt it would be perfect. My mother rarely went against my grandmother’s wishes and I knew grandmother did not like me to dress in the western style. Mother rarely did herself, but I had several dresses and I liked to feel my legs free and bare. At school I had always worn a dress and had become accustomed to them.
Grandmother was very old fashioned and never wore anything but her sarong and kabayu, a type of blouse.
On the morning of our visit to John Ishmael’s home, my sisters and I helped each other get ready in our beautiful dresses. Mother had bought us each one for Christmas the year before and she decided we should all wear them that day for the visit. She wore a sarong and kabayu the same as grandmother, but father wore a dark suit and looked very smart. I think she wanted to show my future in laws that we were a modern, yet traditional family.
Seven of us squeezed into the battered old ford and with a loud bang from the exhaust we set off. Outings were not an every day occurrence and for us all to go out as a family was very rare indeed. We, four girls were crowded into the back and mother shared the front seat with grandmother. My older brothers would meet my future husband once I married and that day they didn’t come with us.
Father always seemed to wrestle with the steering wheel when he drove and we bounced over the rutted road till we came to the main highway. Once on the tarmac we sailed smoothly along.
It took us nearly forty minutes to drive to Malacca as my father always drove very slowly. My future husband lived on the other side of the town and it seemed to take forever before we drove into a small courtyard.
His parents lived in a concrete, low set house with metal grills over the windows. There were white shutters on each window and they made the house look clean and cared for. The house nestled with others in a long row - it was very noisy. Each house had a small courtyard in the front and most were filled with cars and people. This was quite a new building estate and people were buying the new concrete buildings instead of the old tin roofed and wooden ones. The first thing I noticed was how much hotter it was inside than our home.
My dress had creased and I hastily tried to smooth out the wrinkles with my hands. Several people came out to greet us. I looked in panic for a familiar face. A large fat faced man with a traditional black fez on his head came over and shook hands with father.
‘Welcome, welcome. I am Ishmael – John Ishmael’s father and this is my wife Moya and this is…’ he carried on introducing everyone.
I looked around for John Ishmael and felt my face go red when I saw him standing by the front door watching me. He was smiling and looked pleased to see me. Suddenly loose slobbery lips kissed my cheek and I was pressed against a large stomach. My future father in law seemed to devour me with his kisses and his hand slipped from my arms to my waist. I tried to smile but something inside rebelled against his familiarity. His round bloated face reminded me of a pig and he was sweaty and smelt of beer. His lips were full and his tongue slid across them between sentences as if he was savouring something.
‘So this is the young lady my son has chosen eh? Very nice my boy…very nice.’ He gloated.
I had the distinct feeling his eyes caressed my body along with the hands on my waist. Stepping to one side I escaped and held out my own hand to John Ishmael. He took it and held it in both of his.
‘You look very beautiful today Zinab. I like your dress.’ John Ishmael’s voice was full of approval.
‘Thank you. I wondered if you liked western clothes. I often wear them.’
I felt he had to know how modern I was. With relief I realised he didn’t mind in the least.
My future mother in law was small and dainty. Her long hair was swept up into an elegant coil and adorned with fresh frangipanis. Her eyes were large and she was very beautiful with sweeping eyelashes just like her son. She kissed my cheeks and her sharp eyes missed nothing as she looked me over. Her husband was slobbering over Aysha and Misha and she quickly stepped forward and gently pushed him aside with a little laugh.
‘Come on father - let them come inside. Please all of you come into the house.’ She said, effectively breaking up the group.
The inside of the house was very different to ours. It had western style furnishings and instead of sitting on the floor we all sat on chairs. The floor was covered not in rush or reed mats but soft Persian carpets. I was very impressed and gazed about me with interest.
‘This is our town home Zinab we also have a home just like yours in the kampong of our family. When we were all young, before we started school, my grandfather died and left my mother this land and she sold some of it and had this house built.’ John Ishmael told me. I later found out his grandfather had been a rich merchant and owned several properties. As there were no Christian schools near their kampong his mother decided they should live in the town during the week. ‘We have all used this house while we were attending college and finishing our education. Mother likes to live here but father prefers the village where his family still live.’