would be hard for her. Still, I’d no say in the matter, and within a month, the marriage negotiations were concluded and we were settled at my new stepfather’s shophouse in Falim.
Falim was a village on the outskirts of Ipoh, little more than a few lanes of Chinese shophouses, their long narrow bodies sandwiched next to each other with shared walls. My stepfather’s shop was on the main street, Lahat Road. It was dark and cool, with two open courtyards breaking up its serpentine length. The big upstairs bedroom over the front was for the newlyweds, and I was to have, for the first time in my life, my own room at the back, next to Shin’s. A windowless corridor ran lengthwise beside the two small rooms, which were stacked in front of each other like railway cars. Light entered the hallway only if our doors were open.
Shin had barely spoken to me during the whole rushed courtship and marriage, though he’d behaved very well. We were exactly the same age; in fact, it turned out that we were born on the same day, though I was older by five hours. To top it off, my stepfather’s surname was also “Lee,” so there was no need to even change names. The matchmaker was pleased with herself, though it seemed like a horrible trick of fate to me, shoehorning me into a new family where even my birthday would no longer be mine. Shin greeted my mother politely but coldly, and avoided me. I was convinced that he didn’t like us.
In private, I’d begged my mother to reconsider but she’d only touched my hair. “It’s better for us this way.” Besides, she seemed to have taken an odd liking to my stepfather. When his admiring gaze rested on her, her cheeks turned pink. He’d given us money in red packets to buy a simple trousseau for the wedding, and my mother had been unexpectedly excited about it. “New dresses—for you and for me!” she’d said, fanning the bank notes out on our worn cotton bedspread.
That first night at the new house, I was frightened. It was so much larger than the tiny wooden dwelling, one room with a step-down, earthen-floored kitchen, that my mother and I had lived in. This shophouse was both a business and a residence, and downstairs seemed a vast and hollow space. My new stepfather was a middleman who bought tin ore from small-time gravel pump miners and dulang washers, women who panned tin ore from old mines and streams, to resell to the large smelters like the Straits Trading Company.
It was a silent, dark shop. Prosperous, though my stepfather was tightlipped and tightfisted. Hardly anyone came unless they had business selling tin, and the front and back were shuttered with iron grates to prevent theft of the stockpiled ore. As the heavy double doors banged shut behind us that first day, my heart sank.
At bedtime, my mother gave me a kiss and told me to run along. She looked embarrassed, and I realized that from now on, she wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room with me. I could no longer drag my thin pallet next to hers or burrow into her arms. Instead, she belonged to my stepfather, who was watching us silently.
I glanced up at the wooden staircase that yawned into the darkness of the upper floor. I’d never slept in a two-story building before, but Shin went straight up. I hurried after him.
“Good night,” I said. I knew he could talk if he wanted to. That very morning, when we were moving our last few belongings in, I’d seen him laughing and running with his friends outside. Shin looked at me. I thought that if this were my house and some strange woman and her child moved in, I’d probably be angry, too, but he had a curious expression, almost pitying.
“It’s too late for you now,” he said. “But good night.”
* * *
Now as I examined the bottle that I’d taken from the salesman’s pocket, I wondered what Shin would make of it. It occurred to me that there were animals with fingers, too.
“Suppose this isn’t even human?” I said to Hui, who was mending her skirt.
“You mean, like a monkey’s finger?” Hui’s nose wrinkled. Clearly, this idea was just as repulsive to her.
“It would have to be big—a gibbon or maybe even an orangutan.”
“A doctor might be able to tell,” Hui bit off her thread thoughtfully. “Though I don’t know how you’d