His breath smelled of beef rendang. Twisting sharply, I realigned the gap between us. Another glance at the dining-room doorway. Still empty. My little ghost was gone.
“She does, doesn’t she?” It was William Acton. “May I cut in? Host’s prerogative, you know.”
My partner looked irritated but relinquished me. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or not. Overall, I thought it was a change for the worse, even though I was thankful Acton had saved me from an awkward embrace.
We danced in silence, my shoulders tight and my neck stiff with alarm. He was a good dancer, as most foreigners tended to be. They must have all had training.
Just when I was beginning to think that William Acton hadn’t recognized me, he said, “So how have you been, Louise?”
28
Batu Gajah
Saturday, June 20th
Ren is running in and out of the kitchen, clearing the plates from the dining table. It’s agony because the signal that he first sensed at the hospital is now here. Calling him, ever since he opened the front door. His ears ring, his skin tingles. It’s been so long since Yi died. Three years of being alone, the only beacon in a wilderness, and now the signal is coming again.
Someone like me, he thinks. He wants to drop everything and search, but Ah Long gives him one task after another.
When Ren opened the door earlier, the girls entered in a rustle of skirts, soft voices, and suppressed laughter. They passed in a blur, and Ren, dazed and staring, was unable to pinpoint exactly where the signal came from.
And now they’re dancing in the front room where the gramophone is playing. The air is electric with nerves and the animal curiosity of the guests. Ren can feel a fog of excitement that colors everything tonight with unease.
He peers into the front room every moment he can steal away, much to Ah Long’s annoyance. The other Chinese waiter looks over Ren’s shoulder.
“Which one are you looking at?” he asks, his eyes fixed on the girls.
Ren frowns, trying to feel his way with his cat sense, the invisible filaments floating like jellyfish tendrils. “I’m not sure. I can’t tell.”
There are five girls, all Chinese, wearing fashionable Western frocks. The music twitches infectiously, and the dance is very fast. They scissor their legs and touch their knees, reaching up with their arms. The men, panting in the heat, remove their jackets one by one.
“I like that one,” says the waiter with a grin. He points out a girl in a pink dress, with arched, knowing eyebrows. “Though she’s good, too.” The tallest girl, with a chest that jiggles as she dances. It makes the back of Ren’s neck hot, yet he’s also obscurely embarrassed for her. But neither of them is right.
The room is crowded with people taller than Ren. Those who aren’t dancing stand around laughing and clapping as the gramophone record is changed.
“Ohhh … the one with the short hair. Nice legs.” The waiter, enjoying himself, cranes his head at a slim girl in a pale blue dress, her hair bobbed to reveal the nape of her long neck.
Ren’s heart thumps wildly. Straight brows, large eyes, black hair cut in bangs that fly as she swings past on someone’s arm. The buzz in his head is so loud that he staggers, steadying himself against the wall. She looks right at him, and her eyes go wide in recognition.
Ren tenses, ready to run out and grab her wrist, but Ah Long’s scowling face appears. Hissing like an old goose, he herds Ren and the waiter back to their duties, though Ren hardly hears his instructions.
“What’s wrong with both of you?” says Ah Long sourly.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” says the waiter, but Ren is silent.
How does she know him? Is it the same electric signal that he feels? No, it was something else, a visual recognition. It bothers him, the shocked expression on her face.
“No falling in love,” Ah Long says. “We’ve had enough of it tonight.” He jerks his head at the empty seat at the kitchen table where Nandani sat half an hour ago.
“Did she go home?” asks Ren. It’s dark outside, the new moon barely a sliver in the sky. He goes to the screened kitchen door and opens it into the face of the Sinhalese youth who delivered the letter.
“Where’s Nandani?” he says without ceremony. “She asked me to come back to get her, so here I