in through the slats. Disoriented, I found myself lying in bed. Mrs. Tham burst in, her feathers ruffled. Something was up; she was positively simmering with excitement.
“He’s downstairs. Your brother, that is. I think he’s come to take you home to Falim.”
“He is?”
“I told him I knew that he was your brother and why didn’t he say so yesterday? He’s waiting for you in the front room.”
“Is my mother all right?” Fear gripped me. Something must have happened, otherwise why would Shin come to fetch me away?
I’d always been afraid of receiving a message like this and the terror must have shown in my eyes, because Mrs. Tham said quite kindly, “No, there’s nothing wrong. That was the first thing I asked him. It’s just a family get-together to celebrate.”
Our family almost never had get-togethers, let alone celebrations. If we did, they were stiff affairs in which my stepfather’s friends were invited over and the men would sit and talk for hours while my mother and I served them endless cups of tea. Shin knew perfectly well how I felt about them; I couldn’t imagine that he’d come to fetch me away to such purgatory.
“If it’s a special occasion,” said Mrs. Tham, “why don’t you wear something nice? Show your mother what you’ve been learning.”
Despite her fussiness (or perhaps because of it), Mrs. Tham was a talented dressmaker and a shrewd businesswoman. Sending me off nicely dressed was good advertising for her shop. Now she was busy inspecting the clothes I’d made, twitching them off hangers and muttering, “No, not this one. Maybe this one. Here. Show the other girls in Falim what Ipoh clothes look like.”
It was a Western-style frock, a deceptively simple yet elegant design that Mrs. Tham had copied from a magazine picture. She had good taste, I had to admit.
“And if anyone asks you about your dress, be sure to give our shop’s name!” she said on her way out. “Oh, and fix your face!” she hissed, pointing significantly at my eye.
I washed up and packed a simple overnight kit. What could possibly be happening at home? Pulling back my bangs, I stared gloomily at the small round mirror above the washstand. My black eye was still vaguely purple and yellow. I couldn’t possibly show this to my mother, so I did my best with a little pan-stick makeup and a smudge of kohl.
I could hear Shin’s low voice in the front room of the shop. Clutching my rattan basket, I stood hesitantly in the doorway. It was embarrassing to be so dressed up early in the morning, but Mrs. Tham jumped up, dislodging her little dog, Dolly, from her lap, and greeted me with a cry of delight.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said, turning me to one side and then the other. “This pattern turned out so well. And your sister is as good as a professional mannequin. I always like her to model my dresses.”
I signaled Shin with my eyes. Time to leave! But he was enjoying himself at my expense.
“I can’t tell,” he said. “Make her twirl a bit more.”
To my horror, Mrs. Tham actually started to spin me around. Dolly barked hysterically.
“No, no. He’s just joking. And we have to leave now.”
“But Mr. Tham has just gone to the coffee shop to buy some char siew bao!” she said, forcing me to sit down. I glared at Shin as he bit back his amusement.
“Now!” said Mrs. Tham, fixing us both with a beady eye. “Which one of you is older?”
“I am,” I said quickly.
“We were born on the same day.” Shin hated being my younger brother and would deny it at every opportunity.
“So you’re twins!” Mrs. Tham looked pleased. “How nice for your mother.” I was about to tell her that Shin was my stepbrother but she chattered on relentlessly. “Twins are special, I suppose. Especially boy-girl dragon and phoenix twins. Do you know that the Chinese believe that boy and girl twins were husband and wife in a former life? And that they couldn’t bear to be separated, so they were reborn together?”
That seemed both silly and rather tragic to me. If I loved someone, I wouldn’t want to be reincarnated as his sibling, but it wasn’t worth arguing with Mrs. Tham. She had an uncanny knack of sucking you into her orbit. Shin, too, seemed to have had enough. Smiling, he said that it was time to get going as we’d miss the bus.