eating fried bananas and arguing companionably. Strangely enough, in all these scenes I was dressed fashionably enough to please Mrs. Tham. The breeze from the open train window whipped my short hair and bangs. My heart soared.
“All right,” I said, laughing. “Friends?”
Shin rolled his eyes, but stuck his hand out in the familiar gesture. “Your mother said some terrible things about me the other night. But she was right. I’m definitely going to seduce you.”
53
Batu Gajah
Two weeks later
When it’s all over—the police and the funeral and the well-meaning rush of visitors—Ren sits on the back kitchen steps. The house is empty; there’s only him and Ah Long left packing up the master’s things. Not that there’s much. William had very few personal effects though he had, in his characteristically efficient way, drawn up a will. Very recently, the lawyer said. Ren knows about lawyers; he remembers the one in Taiping who took care of Dr. MacFarlane’s affairs, and how he’d grimaced at the mess of papers stuffed into the crannies of the old doctor’s desk. But William’s affairs are neatly arranged.
Heart failure was the official verdict. Miss Lydia made a scene at the funeral, crying and carrying on that she was his fiancée, which was a surprise to lots of people, including her own parents. Her grief and fury were astonishing. Embarrassing, even. She wanted everything that had belonged to him, but the lawyer said she wasn’t in the will and a fiancée wasn’t the same as a wife. The servants have spread the gossip through their swift channels, and everyone knows about this by now.
Ah Long sighs and shrugs. “Lucky he didn’t marry her.” The lines on his face are deeper and his wiry frame has shrunk. As he moves around the empty house, packing away the good silver and crystal to be sent back to the Acton family, his steps are slow and less sure. He doesn’t seem to care about the bequest that William has made: To my Chinese cook, Ah Long, a sum of forty Malayan dollars for his loyal service, though it is a princely gift.
Ren doesn’t have the heart to rejoice, either, despite the fact he, too, is mentioned. There’s a scholarship fund for Ren to go to school, though the monies can only be used for education.
“I don’t want it,” he says to the lawyer’s surprise.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to study. Not right now.”
The lawyer frowns. “Why not wait? Give yourself time to think about it.”
* * *
After his departure, Ah Long calls Ren over to the formal dining room, the table’s polished surface marked by neat piles of unopened mail. They’re all addressed to William and will be forwarded to his family.
“What is it?” Ren asks.
Ah Long holds up a white envelope. For a dizzying second, Ren wonders whether his master has finally received an answer from that lady Iris, the one that he wrote letter after letter to. But no, this letter is for Ren. His name is written on it as a single Chinese character. That’s the part that Ah Long can, thankfully, read.
“For me?” Ren has never in his short life received anything like a letter, though he knows how to write one. Dr. MacFarlane taught him the format, when they were practicing dictation. Ren slits the envelope open carefully. Inside is a single piece of paper.
“Who’s it from?” asks Ah Long suspiciously.
But Ren is reading slowly. It’s short, no more than a few sentences, and when he’s read it through twice, he tucks it away.
“From that girl,” he says.
“The one with short hair, from the party?”
Ren nods, impressed by Ah Long’s memory.
“What did she say?”
Ren hesitates. How to explain it, this reluctance to share her words? Simple ones, but private. “She said she’d always remember me.” And Yi. “And that we’d meet again. There’s an address here if I want to write to her, care of Lee Shin at the medical college.”
Ah Long grunts. Somehow, he seems satisfied.
* * *
The next day, in the still, hot afternoon, an unexpected visitor appears. It’s Dr. Rawlings. Waving aside Ah Long’s attempts to serve him tea, he sits at the kitchen table and studies Ren’s forlorn little figure. “Do you have a place to go?” he asks.
A headshake. “I might go to Kuala Lumpur. To see Auntie Kwan—my old master’s housekeeper.” Ren still has her address tucked away in Dr. MacFarlane’s carpetbag. With a pang of doubt, he wonders if he’ll be a burden to her.