in her late forties, her greying hair pulled back into a bun. ‘My Lao Puo, Emily,’ Magnus said, giving his wife a kiss on her cheek.
‘We’re so happy you’re here, Yun Ling,’ she said. A loose beige skirt softened the lines of her thin figure, and a red cardigan was caped over her shoulders.
‘Where’s Frederik?’ Magnus said.
‘Don’t know. Probably in his bungalow,’ Emily said. ‘Our guest looks tired, Lao Kung. It’s been a long day for her. Stop showing off your house and take her to her room. I’m off to the clinic – Muthu’s wife was bitten by a snake.’
‘Have you called Dr Yeoh?’ Magnus asked.
‘Of course-lah. He’s on his way. Yun Ling, we’ll talk later?’ She nodded to me and left us.
Magnus led me down the hallway. ‘Frederik’s your son?’ I asked; I could not recall having heard anything about him.
‘My nephew. He’s a captain in the Rhodesian African Rifles.’
The house was filled with reminders of Magnus’s homeland – ochre-coloured rugs woven by some African tribe, porcupine quills sticking out of a crystal vase, a two-foot-long bronze sculpture of a leopard in pursuit of an unseen prey. We passed a little room in the eastern wing at the back of the house, not much larger than a linen closet. A radio set took up half of a narrow table. ‘That’s how we stay in touch with the other farms. We got them after the CTs cut down our phone lines too many times for our liking.’
My room was the last one in the passageway. The walls – and even the Bakelite switches – were painted white, and for a few seconds I thought I was back in the Ipoh General Hospital again. On a table stood a vase of flowers I had never seen in the tropics before, creamy white and trumpet-shaped. I rubbed my wrist against one of the flowers; it had the texture of velvet. ‘What are these?’
‘Arum lilies. I had bulbs sent over from the Cape,’ Magnus said. ‘They grow well here.’ He set my bag down by a teak cupboard and said, ‘How’s your mother? Any improvements?’
‘She’s lost in her own world. Completely. She doesn’t even ask me about Yun Hong anymore.’ I was glad in a way, but I did not tell him that.
‘You should have come here to recuperate, after the war.’
‘I was waiting for a reply from the university.’
‘But to work for the War Crimes Tribunal – after what had happened to you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m surprised your father allowed it.’
‘It was only for three months.’ I stopped, then said, ‘He had heard no news of me or Yun Hong all through the war. He didn’t know what to make of me when he saw me. I was a ghost to him.’
It was the only time in my life that I had seen my father cry. He had aged so much. But then, I suppose, so had I. My parents had left Penang and moved to Kuala Lumpur. In the new house he took me upstairs to my mother’s room, walking with a limp that he had never had before the war. My mother had not recognised me, and she had turned her back to me. After a few days she remembered I was her daughter, but each time she saw me she began asking about Yun Hong – where she was, when she was coming home, why she had not returned yet. After a while I began to dread visiting her.
‘It was better for me to be out of the house, to keep myself occupied,’ I said. ‘He didn’t say it, but my father felt the same way.’
It had not been difficult to be hired as an assistant researcher – a position that was nothing more than a clerk, really – at the War Crimes Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur. So many people had been killed or wounded in the war that the British Military Administration had faced a shortage of staff when the Japanese surrendered. Recording the testimonies of the victims of the Imperial Japanese Army affected me more badly than I had anticipated, however. Watching the victims break down as they related the brutalities they had endured, I was made aware that I had yet to recover from my own experience. I was glad when I received my letter of admission from Girton.
‘How many war criminals did they actually get in the end?’ asked Magnus.
‘In Singapore and Malaya together, a hundred and ninety-nine were sentenced to death – but only a hundred were eventually hanged.’ I said, looking into the bathroom. It was bright and airy, the floor a cold chessboard of black and white tiles. A claw-footed bathtub stood by the wall. ‘I attended only nine of the hangings before I left for Girton.’
‘My magtig.’ Magnus looked appalled.
For a while we were silent. Then he opened a door next to the cupboard and asked me to follow him outside the room. A gravel path ran behind the house, taking us past the kitchen until we came to a broad terrace with a well-tended lawn. A pair of marble statues stood on their own plinths in the centre of the lawn, facing one another. On my first glance they appeared to be identical, down to the folds of their robes spilling over the plinths.
‘Bought them ridiculously cheap from an old planter’s wife after the planter ran off with his fifteen-year-old lover,’ said Magnus. ‘The one on the right is Mnemosyne. You’ve heard of her?’
‘The goddess of Memory,’ I said. ‘Who’s the other woman?’
‘Her twin sister, of course. The goddess of Forgetting.’
I looked at him, wondering if he was pulling my leg. ‘I don’t recall there’s a goddess for that.’
‘Ah, doesn’t the fact of your not recalling prove her existence?’ He grinned. ‘Maybe she exists, but it’s just that we have forgotten.’
‘So, what’s her name?’
He shrugged, showing me his empty palms. ‘You see, we don’t even remember her name anymore.’
‘They’re not completely identical,’ I said, going closer to them. Mnemosyne’s features were defined, her nose and cheekbones prominent, her lips full. Her sister’s face looked almost blurred; even the creases of her robe were not as clearly delineated as Mnemosyne’s.
‘Which one would you say is the older twin?’ asked Magnus.
‘Mnemosyne, of course.’
‘Really? She looks younger, don’t you think?’
‘Memory must exist before there’s Forgetting.’ I smiled at him. ‘Or have you forgotten that?’
He laughed. ‘Come on. Let me show you something.’ He stopped at the low wall running along the edge of the terrace. Pinned to the highest plateau in the estate, Majuba House had an unimpeded view of the countryside. He pointed to a row of fir trees about three-quarters of the way down a hill. ‘That’s where Aritomo’s property starts.’
‘It doesn’t look far to walk.’ I guessed it would take me about twenty minutes to get there.
‘Don’t be fooled. It’s further than it looks. When are you meeting him?’
‘Half past nine tomorrow morning.’
‘Frederik or one of my clerks will drive you there.’
‘I’ll
