Ghost
MIDNIGHT.
The moon hung round and full and bright in the sky, but its light
was often obscured by clouds, which were so billowy and ominous
that they blocked out even the stars. The air was damp and heavy,
that oppressive heat and humidity that promised a glorious
thunderstorm. But as Pink watched Suraya wipe first one, then the
other hand off carefully on her clothes, he suspected her damp
palms had littleto do with the temperature and everything to do with
what they were about to do.
"Do we even know if this will work?" she mumbled inJing's
general direction as they walked toward the mosque, their footsteps
oddly muffled by the deep, dark night.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing," Jing replied. "Also, and I hate
to point this out, but . . . we don't really have any other options."
Other than my eventual enslavement by a deranged, power
hungry man, Pink added, trying to be helpful.
Suraya shot him a look. I'll own that it's not an ideal option,he
conceded.
"Be quiet, Pink," she said, stepping carefully in the darkness, the
dirt road crunching softly beneath her feet. "We have to hurry. For all we know, our moms are already on their way."
"It's not them I'm worried about, tbh."
There was a light thump, and a sharp clang that felt like it could
have woken the entire village.
"What happened?"
A snuffling sound. "I tripped and stubbed my toe," Jing said. "And
then I dropped the spade."
"Be careful, you klutz." With every step toward the cemetery, Pink
felt Suraya's footsteps falter a little more, then a little more still.
"Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe we should have tried something
else."
Like what?
"I don't know. Something." There was the tiniest of pauses, then
Suraya's voice in the darkness, small and sad. "I'm not sure I'm
ready to lose you."
Pink's little grasshopper body felt heavy with sadness. Nobody is
ever really ready for goodbye,he said gently. But sometimes you
need tobid farewell to the things holding you back so that you can
move forward.
"You're not holding me back, Pink."
Her voice wasthick with tears, and he had to swallow a sudden
lump in his own throat. You know that isn't true.
There was silence then. In the dim light, Pink could just make out
Jing next to Suraya, the too-long sleeves of her top pushed far up
above her elbows, her face etched with concern. "Don't worry, Sooz.
This'll work, I'm sure of it."
"I should never have listenedto you." Suraya tried to mask the
quiver that still lingered in her voice behind a veil of annoyance, but
he heard it anyway.
"Who's more foolish?" Jing shot back. "The fool, or the fool who
follows him?"
"Stop quoting Star Wars at me."
I hate to interrupt, Pink said dryly. But we have arrived.
The ribbons of moonlight that managed to filter through the clouds
illuminated the distinctive peaks and curves of the head- and tail
stones, the sharp edges of the accompanying concrete that bordered some of the graves. This was a cemetery light years from the one
they'd visited before; KualaGajah was a tired old town, and its
tiredness seeped into its burial grounds too, showing itself in the
cracked, crooked headstones; the way they were carelessly
scattered over the gently sloping ground, as though little thought had
gone into their arrangement; the way the weeds, unkempt grass, and
unswept leaves covered most of them, as though they had long been
forgotten.
It seemed to Pink both unbearably sad and achingly familiar, all
at the same time.
Hello, old friends, he whispered.
"Assalamualaikum, ya ahli kubur," Suraya whispered as she
unlatched the little metal gate and stepped inside, her feet crunching
against the dry leaves below.
"Hi, ghosts."
They both turned to glare at Jing, who hastily amended her
greeting. "I mean, uh, salutations oh residents of the grave."
They stood staring at the graves spread out before them. Before,
chatting with Hussein in broad daylight, the other cemetery had
seemed as scary as a child's playground. Looking at this one, it was
hard not to think about anything but what lay in the ground under
their feet.
Suraya gripped the marble in one hand and cleared her throat
conspicuously. "We should split up," she said. "Look for the graves of
little kids. Like before."
"Uh-huh." Jing nodded, but didn't move. Her hand clutched her
little spade like a weapon.
"It would be much faster," Suraya said. "Much more efficient."
"Uh-huh," Jingsaid. In the distance, thunder rumbled as though
the sky itself was grumbling at their dawdling. "Or. Or, I mean. We
could do it together. . . ."
"You're probably right, that's a great idea," Suraya said, speaking
so fast the words tripped over themselves in their rush to be heard.
Pink said nothing. He was too busy trying to figure out exactly
how he was feeling.
They set off, working their way through the cemetery
methodically, from left to right. The cemetery stood on land that sloped gently upward from the mosque, so that each row was a little
higher than the last. At first they tried to read each headstone that
they passed, but it took too much time to decipher the looping Arabic
alphabet that spelled out each one's name and parentage, and they
soon resorted to eyeing the space between the headstones and their
accompanying tail stones, looking for the shorter lengths that told
tales of smaller bodies and younger occupants. There didn't seem to
be many. The witch used to call Kuala Gajah a "stuck" town: "Stuck
in time, stuck incustoms, stuck in mediocrity," she'd snort.It wasn't a
town where young people built a life; it was a town you moved away
from while you still could, before it captured you in its web of lethargy
and sucked the energy and ambition from your bones. If you died
here, she'd said, you died ofold age, "and sometimes your children
barely make it back from their busy lives in their bustling cities in
time for your burial."
Why did you come here, then? He'd asked her once.
"Because people whose lives are incredibly dull are always
looking for ways to make it more exciting," she'd countered. "And will
pay for that privilege."
Funny how the town had taken her too, in the end.
It seemed like they worked for a long time, moving from grave to
grave in the heat of the night, when they heard it: a low, quiet
humming.
Pink felt Suraya stiffen. Beside her, he saw Jing reach down to
clasp her hand, hard.
"Is that . . . is that Rasa Sayang?" Jing whispered, her eyes wide.
It was. Even Pink could recognize the familiar, jaunty little tune. It
was a song almost every Malaysian child grew up singing, clapping
along and mouthing the words even in kindergarten.
Whoever was singing now, their voice was a low rasp. "Rasa
sayang HEY, rasa sayang sayang HEY, HEYYYY lihat nona jauh
rasa sayang sayang HEY!" The "heys" were expelled with joyous,
enthusiastic force.
Slowly, the girls turned around.
Sitting cross-legged on the fresh mound of a nearby grave was
an old uncle, wearing a thin white T-shirt and a checkered kain
pelikat tied about his thin waist and stroking the wispy bits of hair that sprouted from his chin. He looked as normal as one could look
sitting casually in a graveyard in the dead of night, save for one other
thing: like Hussein, he wasn't quite there. You could stare straight
through him and just see the faint outlines of the graves beyond.
Suraya and Jing grasped each other's hands as if theywould
never let go. "How come we can see him even without the marble?"
Jing whispered, her voice hoarse, and Suraya glanced at Pink
questioningly.
A full moon is a powerful thing, said Pink, shrugging.
"It's the moon," Suraya told Jing.
The uncle-ghost finally seemed to notice them and squinted in
their direction, frowning a little. "What are you staring for?" he said,
his voice loud and querulous. "You young people, staring and
staring. Got no manners ah? Why so rude?"
"Sorry, uncle, sorry," Suraya stammered. "I just . . . we weren't . . .
expecting anyone else to be here . . ."
"Not expecting!" He sniffed. "You come into someone's house
and don't expect them to be home? What are you, graverobbers?"
He eyed the spade in Jing's trembling hand suspiciously, and she
quickly shoved it behind her back, out of sight.
"No, sir! We are just . . . looking for someone."
He didn't seem convinced. "Oh yes, hmm? Looking for someone?
Bit late for young'ns like you to be out, isn't it? Back in my day, we
made sure our children were in bed by seven o'clock."
"Wah, seven is a bit too early, right, uncle?" Jing said.
"SEVEN O'CLOCK," he bellowed. "Only way. Otherwise,whack
them with the cane. Young people need DISCIPLINE." And he
glowered at them as though he'd have liked to have them disciplined
right then and there.
"What is all this NOISE?" From the depths of another grave, up
floated another not-quite-there shape. Only this time, it was a kind
faced woman, plump as a pau and just as white in the moonlight,
and clad in a worn-out kaftan with fraying bat-wing sleeves, her hair
hidden beneath a ghostly knit cap. "Some of us are trying to SLEEP,
Badrul."
"It's these kids," the uncle-ghost said peevishly, pointing at them.
"Knocking about graves at odd hours doing Allah knows what. . . .
Mangkuk. Anyway, you shouldn't waste a fine full moon night like this
on sleep, Salmah."
"It's Saloma," the plump ghost said primly. "And you're right. One
must not waste the magic of a full moon." She pushed strands of
wispy hair from her face. "I do like a good spotlight."
"Saloma?" Suraya squinted at the plump ghost, who preened at
the attention. "Like . . . the famous singer?"
"Yes!" she squealed excitedly. "Only . . . er . . . not the famous
singer. But I was quite good as well!"
"Salmah," Badrul muttered under his breath. "Her name is
SALMAH. And she sings like a dying cat."
"Shush," she hissed, fixing him with a stony glare. "You'reone to
talk, singing loud enough to wake the dead. Now, children . . . can
we helpyou? What on earth are you doing wandering around here?
This is no place for the living."
Suraya tried to swallow back her fear. "We're looking for a grave."
Badrul snorted. "Well, you're in the right place for that, I give you
that much."
"A name, dear, give us a name," Saloma-or-Salmah trilled.
"We don't know the name, or even whether it's a boy or a
girl. . . ."
"We just know it's a little kid," Jing supplied quickly, pushing her
damp hair out of her eyes."Are there a lot of little kids in this
graveyard?"
"Going to need to get a little more specific, dear," maybe-Saloma
said, shaking her head. "We've not got too many, but there are a few.
Don't want to wake them if we can help it. The little darlings need
their rest."
"And they're too LOUD," Badrul added.
We are looking for one who is not,said Pink, andnever had his
voice felt so loud, so unnatural. We are looking for a child who does
not speak. A child without a tongue.
The two ghosts looked at each other and shook their heads.
"There's only one child that fits that description," Badrul said gruffly.
Suraya's face was pale, andPink could feel her body tremble.
"Could you take us to her?"
"Him," Saloma/Salmah said quietly. "He's a boy."
"Can we see him?"
"You'd be lucky," Badrul sniffed.
"We rarely see him, dear," Saloma said gently. "He's not much for
socializing, that one."
"So where's hisgrave anyway?" It never took Jing long to find her
equilibrium again.
In answer, the two ghosts pointed.
Suraya followed the direction of their fingers up, up, up the slope
to the very highest point, where the tangle of trees and vines
reached out to embrace a lone head- and tail stone, its outlines just
visible in the wavering moonlight.
"There," they said together.
Pink shuddered. "Pink?" Suraya whispered. "Are you all right?"
Pink looked at her, so worried, so afraid, and felt a twingewhere
his heart ought to be. She had been through so much because of
him. Surely he could do this, for her?
Come, he said quietly. Let us go and be done with it.
Suraya and Jing turned to begin their trek to the grave.
And then theyheard it. A frantic skittering, like the sound of a
thousand scampering spiders. And a familiar voice.
"Hello, girls."