It made me want to curl up, cover my eyes, run away. For deep in the darkest, most cowardly recess of my heart, I was afraid that one day I’d turn around to discover that Shin, in some monstrous, nightmarish twist, had transformed into his father.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said bitterly. “I won’t do anything. I never have.”
He walked off. I knew those squared shoulders, that dropped head, and I was filled with unbearable pity and misery.
After a bit, I caught up behind him and tugged his hand. “Friends?”
He nodded. It was getting dark, the buildings fading into grey nothingness. We walked in silence for a while, hand in hand as though we were children again. Like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods, I thought hazily. My face felt dull and increasingly hot. Whether we were following a trail of breadcrumbs or headed to a witch’s den, I’d no idea.
At last I said, “I’d better get to the station.”
“It’s too late,” he said. “The evening train’s gone.”
“What shall I do then?” I sank down on the coarse grass, too tired to care about stains on my dress. There was no one about anyway, although the electric lights in the hospital had winked on.
“Stay over. I told you I fixed it up. Don’t worry about Y. K.—he’s off tonight to visit his parents.”
My head drooped. It was heavy, as though an invisible dwarf was standing on it and stamping its feet triumphantly. Shin felt my forehead. “You have a fever! Why didn’t you say anything?”
* * *
Shin’s nurse friend was out, but he found me a spare bed in the staff hostel for visiting relatives. As he was signing the register, Koh Beng came around the corner.
“Not going back to Ipoh tonight?” He wore a fresh shirt and cotton trousers with a comb tucked in the back pocket, his hair plastered wetly to one side. It was Saturday after all, and the night was just beginning.
“My sister’s tired,” said Shin.
Koh Beng gave me a sly glance. “I heard from Y. K. earlier that she’s not really your sister at all. You dog!”
I looked at Shin. What are we going to do?
“That’s right, she’s my girl,” he said coolly.
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because I’m signing her in as a relative.” Fortunately there was no one at reception to hear this, though a few nurses had passed through, dressed fashionably to go out. It might have been my imagination, but at least a couple of them gave me unfriendly stares.
Koh Beng looked disappointed. “Well, Ji Lin, if you ever get tired of him, don’t forget about me.”
I smiled weakly. My head throbbed as though the invisible dwarves were now pounding it gleefully with mallets; I wondered if I was going to have another strange dream. “I’m going to bed.”
Shin pressed a bottle of aspirin into my hand. “If you need anything, send me a message.”
I nodded and followed the housekeeper into the women’s side of the staff hostel. The housekeeper, an older auntie-type lady, didn’t say anything either. Her back was stiff with disapproval, and I wondered if she’d overheard Koh Beng’s loud remarks. She unlocked a room, a narrow cell-like space with just enough room for a single bed, and handed me the key along with two thin cotton towels.
In the doorway, she turned back, her mouth a thin line. “The guestrooms are really only for family members, not ‘friends.’”
“But we are family,” I said. “By marriage, that is.” I’d meant to say by our parents’ marriage, but my tongue was thick and dry, as though it was too large for my mouth.
She looked relieved. “Oh, so you’re getting married, then? Did you register already?” Lots of young couples registered early at the courthouse so they could apply for housing together. Not having the energy to disabuse her, I smiled feebly.
“So how long have you known each other?” she asked.
“Since we were ten years old.”
“Childhood sweethearts, then!” The housekeeper looked pleased. “And such a pretty, well-dressed girl like you.”
Here was my cue to advertise Mrs. Tham’s dressmaking shop but I felt so ill that I could barely speak. After she’d left, I washed up. I’d have loved to ask the nurses about what it was like to work here, but instead I swallowed two aspirin tablets and lay down. My last thought before I fell asleep was to wonder whether or not we’d locked the pathology storeroom door.