English Dream

Preface

2012-01-17T09:57:00.011+01:00

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H E is, in so many ways, exploring life like a proud Sarawak hornbill, free and wild, wandering aimlessly across the cloudy sky, alone, because the other birds cannot fly like him. Now, he finds her beneath his wings, the truth about what she is to him is glaring – she is the first to have come this close. S H E tells him: If being hurt by you is to complete my life, so be it. It wouldn't hurt so much because I have already felt your kindness and passion even when we're world apart, even when we are only connected by a thin slice of faith. I know I don't need anybody else now. Just you is enough. If I wasn't entirely honest with you before, I am now. So, I give you, ME..

Christhoper Kelawing claimed this novel as solely his creation, to be published under name Christhoper Kelawing, or any name the publisher deems suitable. No part of this story shall be published anywhere without prior consultation with the writer.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The background information upon which the story is narrated is researched from factual historical or biblical information. However, the presentation of this information in this story is heavily exaggerated or altered for the purpose of creating a story line that fits a biased theme of the story which is Tale of a Kayan Prince.

While writing this story I was thinking along these titles:

TALE OF A KAYAN PRINCE

Preface
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My name is Fanny. I’ve been going around the world as air stewardess with Malaysia Airlines for many years. 15 years ago I met a man, a type of person you probably do not want to meet in your lifetime. He is a notorious man. He is badass. When I say notorious it is not an impression; it is information. Forget his age is only 25, start counting upward, before anyone could get the correct proportion of his notoriety. When I say badass emphasis must be given to word bad; forget the ass because he is not.

HE’S A CRUSADER. He had a score to settle with the Chinese because these settlers had victimized his native folks in Baram River, stole from their land and raped the womenfolk. He’s a strong man, he punished the Chinese. HE’S A KING. He had a score to settle with Malaya because the Malayan-biased country had conquered Upper Baram, homeland of the Kayans. By merit of his lineage he was a Kayan prince, heir to a throne long forsaken. HE’S A DEVIL. He had a score to settle with religion because the religion had converted his people from a band of mighty warriors to become slaves in Malaysia. He also had a score to settle with his father, a Christian missionary, because the reverend had wronged him when he was a child.

HE’S A MISFIT OF SCIENCE. He had hoped to become a pilot or an astronaut one day, but he was colour-blind. Amazingly, he had altered the law of colours. He made Science worked for him, he became Green Man. He settled the score to with Science.

He looked for answers as to why he was unique, why he was young but his spirit wanted to feel old struggles. He needed a break for his struggles were plenty and he had grown wearisome. I found him one night in a seaside in Miri when the night was so bright and the crescent moon hang high. Together, we looked in a place he had not discovered – his heart. The answers he was looking for slowly unravelled. I loved this man. I loved him very much. But we could not be together. This is our story.

PRELUDE - Gah Benuang
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Prelude

2012-01-17T09:56:00.009+01:00

PRELUDE

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Photo http://www.yogalibre.net/

1990

Six years ago

She never knew a river could be this noisy, as boisterous as this one she was looking at. Being here was frightening and thrilling at the same time. The noise must have come from underneath the leaky transport as strong undercurrent was ruthlessly polishing the rock-strewn riverbed. At this part of the white water river where it was shallow and clear she could see the underwater stones, rounded and white, some were as big as her head the other were about the size of a car. It must be fun down there. But as much as she had wanted to take a dive she had better not risked her life going into the bewitching water. The 15-year-old girl was in the middle of a treacherous rapid about the size of Lutong airfield. What was she thinking?

Small and snappy waves, making yet another relentless attempt, they smashed against the side of the longboat. They were quickly joined by their other relatives, the big and sloppy waves. As they smashed harder, a good sum of splashing water had eventually jumped overboard, soaking her surprised face. “This boat is doing alright,” nervously she said to a man who had his back to her. That was actually a question, given together with an answer she hoped to hear. The young man ignored her. He kept to his job. He was standing, almost suspended, with one foot stepping on the side of the longboat while his other foot was pushing against the wall as his body weight was leaning against the teken he was holding as he pushed the longboat as far as possible from a submerged boulder the wooden boat had nearly grazed.

“This is the right time to be afraid,” announced the young man unsympathetically without looking at her. “Sit still, don’t make a move, hold your breath for as long as you can until we get to the end of this rapid. Pray now or we’ll sink!”

She hated it when he talked like that. She was only a teenage girl who now made her first trip to this part of Upper Baram while he was a Kayan man who had the habit of exaggerating. But maybe this time he was not kidding. There was no grin or lopsided smile on his oval-shaped face. A blazing sun was reflected in his mirrored aviators. Underneath that rayban he was sweating but it was not from the heat in the Telang Usan sky. Something in the water had unnerved him. She had been told earlier that strong current in a rapid was like a big elephant, it could elbow the longboat in any direction. A collision or even a nippy kiss connected between the longboat and any of the boulders could spell troubles for the boat. A ‘kelikat’ or whirlpool could also suck this boat towards a stony slab. That, too, could lead to a collision.

“Fanny!” She heard her name. Turning around she saw her Aunt Helena at the back section of the longboat was making sign to her, commanding her not to stay too close to the side of the longboat. She had obliged since before she was told to do so.

The young man with ray ban stood vigilant on the forefront of the longboat as if he was the boat captain. He was only one of two navigators who pointed direction for the man who manned the engine in the rear. They also needed to mind the depth of the passage to be taken by the longboat or looked out for threat underwater, for fear the outboard engine could accidentally run into them. A knock into a hard surface could certainly break the two-prong propeller blade into pieces. The engine rendered useless it could only mean the longboat lost its push; nowhere else I could go but drift downriver until it crashed somewhere and overturned. Such was often the case in many incidents involving unfortunate longboats in rapids previously.

The fate of the longboat and the human on board now rested in the hand of these three men. Somewhere in the thick cumulus nimbus above them a pair of eagle watched anxiously, for they had arrived at Gah Benuang the killer rapid.

Three Malay schoolteachers were killed here last year. Their longboat overturned it flung the human into the unforgiving embrace of Benuang. Many a foreigner and indigenous native alike had perished here in the last decades when Gah Benuang was in its elements particularly in rainy season when the water level was usually high. The ‘gah’ or rapid did not get smaller, only wider. The few safe passages through the killer gah, which experienced boat operators had memorised in their heads, were altered from time to time.

This longboat was full with Americans. They were giggling and smiling like an American. They smelt like an American, too. They were definitely Americans, because they needed to be told over and over not to move too much in the longboat. The panorama around was breathtakingly antique alright. But this was not the right time for sightseeing.

The boat operator, a young Penan man, was struggling with the Suzuki outboard engine as the longboat, over 30-foot long, braved the shallow sector of the rapid. At some point where the current was very strong it was almost a stalemate in the competition between machine and nature. Someone must interfere or this could take forever. And that was what the man with ray ban was doing each time, using his teken to push the longboat forward.

He sighed relieved when the man with ray ban pointed to his right, towards the river middle. The water over there looked difficult alright but the Penan remembered that area. It was one of the safe passages. They could try it.

But, NO, they’re not going there. Too risky!

A big change in plan as Reverend David Lawai, the group leader, took over the navigating from his son. His fat finger instead pointed downward. The Penan in the boat rear knew what that meant he killed the engine. Helena Bungan knew what her husband meant she kicked off her sandals. The man with ray ban knew what his father meant he took off his ray ban.

The Americans were clueless. She thought she knew, and was about to make a move when the man who was now without ray ban told her to stay put. The two navigators, the boat operator and Aunt Helena jumped into the water almost at the same time. Manual operation!

Standing waist-deep in the water, the four kept to the left side of the boat with their back to the bank of the river. They dragged the longboat against the river current. Slow progress, but it was moving forward. The long longboat was slightly lighter now: 13 passengers minus four.

The reverend was sure he had made the right decision. The river middle looked calmer but he had weighed that option against many unfavourable factors. The longboat was heavy, with only a 40-horsepower engine to power it through a boisterous rapid in the shape of Gah Benuang. It was in fact under power. The American Antic displayed by his passengers was also another worry. Their safe bet, he had decided, was to revert to tradition – the manual operation. Challenges in the water were rather physical, not spiritual. The reverend could thank God later but right now the situation had asked for his experience as Kayan boatman. Evidently, he was still a white water expert. He was also thankful his son was an expert of some kind. The young man managed their stubborn passengers.

The eight American passengers were seated two abreast in four rows in the longboat. They had the best seats in the boat. Their section was sheltered with a nicely structured zinc roof. Their sitting positions had been prearranged prior to the river journey three hours earlier. Their weight must not throw the boat off balance. This basic sense of survival was particularly crucial when the boat attempted a rapid, particularly important when the rapid was Benuang. Sit still.

A big black man decided to photograph the riverside. He moved. As the river was noisy the young man had to shake the boat rudely to catch his attention. The message was clear. Sit still. The black man, easily weighing over 100 kilogrammes, apologetically obliged.

The young man harshly called out to an American woman after he saw her reaching out to the river and was feeling the water with her two hands like a musician was feeling her piano. He was not at all impressed. He pointed to a submerged stone and then pointed to the side of the longboat. After getting the message the brunette snapped out of her engrossment and stopped what she was doing. Everyone heard the uneasy sound afterward when the longboat grazed the submerged stone. The look on the brunette’s face was all remorse. She could have lost her skinny hands and her wedding ring.

A tall white man moved. He and a petite blonde woman had wanted to exchange seats. They got a water splash from the stern-face young man. Quickly they aborted their intention. The reverend had laughed silently. He would not do that to his special guests, a team of doctors from the United States. But, for the sake of everybody somebody had to do it.

The Americans now sat as quietly as she had been since ten minutes earlier. They probably had thought flexing a muscle was also a wrong thing to do at this particular moment while they were in a rapid. Nobody must do anything else while a stern face Kayan was in charge.

As soon as the most difficult part of Gah Benuang was behind them, the four persons in the river climbed skilfully into the longboat without hauling in much water along with their wet clothes. Helena Bungan had hauled herself back into the back section of the longboat where she quickly resumed her earlier duty – withdrawing water from the flooded hull with a small scoop and dumping the unwanted load back into the river from where they had come awhile earlier. Her husband was by her side now, doing the same thing she was doing.

All hands on board had returned to their respective stations. But for awhile the man with mirrored aviators and the Penan man had used tekens to keep the longboat moving as it inched towards deeper water where it was safe for the Suzuki to take over.

The big black man quickly asked for a go-ahead from the self-appointed boat captain. The man with ray ban nodded. The grateful American got to it quickly, his camera began snapping maniacally. Looking back, Gah Benuang was roughly about 100 metres long by 70 metres wide. It had taken them nearly half an hour to clear it.

Helena sighed relief. She knew, however, Gah Benuang was only one of the rapids along the upper part of Baram River. Many long hours to cover before they were to enter the mouth of a tributary, Silat River, from where it took another hour or two before they were to arrive at Lung Sayang, their final destination.

‘Lung’, pronounced loong, was Baram natives for river mouth. Commonly, a settlement nearest to the lung was named after it.

From the look of Baram River she could expect the Silat River to become narrower and shallower, with more rapids expected, as the longboat journeyed farther in. At some points the longboat could be expected to negotiate sharp curves. Low laying tree branches offered a challenge from overhead. She prayed they could complete the river journey before nightfall. Travelling along the Silat River aided only by a couple of spotlights could take the river experience to a whole new difficulty level. She had been in that situation before. She did not enjoy it.

They had started from Lung Dara yesterday, put up in Lung Naha’a before continuing early in the morning, making brief stops at a couple of longhouses along the way. This two-day river journey was tiring for everyone. And, it had started to get on some people’s nerve, particularly on her son’s, the man with ray ban. He had not been smiling since morning. He was forced by his father to join this Christian mission. He did not like Christian religion. He did not like his father.

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PART 1 - LUNG DARA DEVIL

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Return to Preface

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Part 1

2012-01-17T09:55:00.015+01:00

LUNG DARA TREATY

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For your convenient you can imagine Fanny and Jack to appear like a good-looking couple in this photo. Their facial features, their height, their clothes, their physique. Fanny's look is somewhat a cross between Brooke Shield and Liv Tyler, except that you need to translate that into Asian version (but not Chinese). As for Jack, pay close attention to his mouth and his hands. Below is a photo of two riverside townships. You probably like to imagine that as Lung Dara.

1996

Present time

Fanny sighs. She wonders why he is so much of a crusader of some kind. What is it he wants with the Chinese really? Gosh, sad really, for him to think he was doing a righteous thing. No one in Baram valleys had asked him to do a favour for them. It wasn’t a favour he did for them, rather disfavour. They don’t need a peacemaker, or a punisher, or a freedom fighter, whatever, in the shape of a violent young Kayan. The folks are already in their respective places in the society. They adapt to it. They don’t complain. Some hiccups every now and then. They get on with it. They move on. No need for a clever devil or some prophet from some university to jumble up social norms in a small township, as if he can offer a better alternative. For all he knew he had only made it worst for everyone.

And why is she in this kind of conversation with him?

They could talk about other things. Exciting things within their age range, things like music – the current sensation Amy Search or Man Bai –, or some movies or exciting places for holidays, or anything that don’t require too much brain in the exchange. Why can’t they talk about that instead? Right, she knows why, because he is not interested with small talk.

Or she could tell him about her bright future. It would interest him if she tells him he’ll get a postcard from every town her plane is visiting. She’s sure he will want to know her colleagues in the Boeing, and she probably can match him up with the prettiest of them. Isn’t that an interesting plan? That’s the kind of stuff talked between a 25-year-old male and 21-year-old female, isn’t it? Right, she knows why such talk will not get any longer than a minute between them. Because he is not interested with her life!

Hence here they stuck in this painful topic. For nearly an hour now their conversation revolves around this man. He is vain. He is full of himself. Where there’s he there’s troubles. Beat the boys kiss the girls, beat the boys kiss the girls, on it goes until some Chinese and Jesus come along. He didn’t even stop to ask if she’s interested with stuff like that. They have 12 hours remaining before her flight bound for Kuching, and they probably don’t see each other ever again, yet here they are talking about blood, hatred, and sins?

When will it be Fanny Wong-Anyie’s turn to come into the centre of the conversation? She knows many other men are dying to have a conversation with her. Those men would not mind listening to her talking about the colours of her finger nails or her complaining about the sun hurting her beautiful skin or her wishing for a date with John Travolta in the moon. They would let her brags while they squat in the floor with tongue sticking out like some dog waiting for a gentle pat on the head. Men will do that for her. But not this man! This man is JACK-LEJAU-LAWAI. She supposes that sums up everything there is to tell.

Why is she here with him tonight?

She hates him?

She likes him?

Earlier in the day, Josephine had fetched her at Kuala Baram Express Wharf. She said she had arrived early so she did not have to wait. She was thankful Josephine was thoughtful. That seven-hour journey by boat from Lung Dara to Kuala Baram, transit in Lung Meludi, was tiring, especially during peak seasons when the 80-seater boat was packed like sardines and moved like a boat full of sardines down the Great Baram River, second longest and largest in Sarawak, not to mention the countless of stops it had to make dropping off or picking up passengers at a string of longhouses along the way.

But Josephine had to wait longer when the Maju Ziko express boat, the fastest in the fleet of public transports, travelling at 40knots, had arrived nearly half an hour behind ETA. 4.10PM. As soon as the boat had touched the landing stage several impatient passengers had jumped off from the roof and landed like monkeys on the awaiting platform. Without anymore delays the express boat coughed up everyone. Crowded was the quay, but Josephine could immediately recognised her. Right away the two friends chatted and exchanged news as they walked toward a Datsun 120Y parked tightly in the shed of a coconut tree. Half an hour drive to Holiday Park in Bakam.

The earth underneath her feet had finally stopped moving. She was thankful the daylong journey from Lung Dara to Miri was now officially over. They joined Mrs Lawai in the kitchen. The men were not home.

The Lawai have migrated from their home village three years earlier to get closer to urbanisation in Miri town. She put up with them tonight before her flight to the Sarawak capital the following afternoon. Reverend David Lawai was away, ministering to the Penans in Upper Baram. His wife Helena said sometime he stayed there for weeks. On occasions she followed him. Now she resigned to chores at home considering their children Jeffrey, aged 23, and Josephine Lawai, 21, had returned for a two-month semester break from Sarawak University of Technology in Semariang Kuching where they were doing their final year in Public Administration and Secretarial Science respectively. Their eldest brother Jack had completed his Business Studies at last year, also at the same university.

The Lawai’s residence in Holiday Park was a considerably big house, five bedrooms. The two-storey detached building, made of brick with white coating and red-coloured spandex roof, sat in a huge green compound with Helena’s garden on one side and Jeffrey’s basketball mini court on the other side. To the left of the house, beyond the perimeter of fences, she found a large, idle grassy field with a few tall trees for birds to build nests. To its right she found a long straight lane sliding down directly to the house gates where the lane met its dead end. According to some superstition such arrangement between a house and a road was not propitious. But this Christian family were non believers of such craps. On the whole, this white house, almost a banglo, was nestling in a beautiful landscape – green around, spacey and with enough privacy. Drive three minutes out and there was the South China Sea.

The dogs, Lennon and Yuki, had accepted her presence among the Lawai. Yet they still could not take their watchful eyes off her as she was taking a stroll in the yard, exercising her long legs after a whole day having glued to her seat in the boat.

While she was doing some simple Yoga she caught sight of something very familiar to her. A Yamaha Enduro motorcycle painted in black and silver. The tall motorcycle! That was how she had loved to address it. The bike was actually a scrambler, built for rugged terrain, suitable for all weathers. The man who owned it had given it a makeover, so well that the machine had projected a dashing sporty image. Of course it got taller. Ah, the good rock and roll days. That was six, seven, eight years earlier when she was crazy about bikes and bikers. The tall motorcycle had unmistakably met its natural death, now left in a dire state, lying grubby and greasy in the back of a car porch. She felt somewhat hurt.

She was cleaning some vegetables in the kitchen when she heard Mrs Lawai announced the time – 5.15pm. Then they heard Lennon and Yuki in the lawn were excitedly announcing the arrival of the master who gave them their names. The dogs had scented him much earlier than the sound of a diesel car approaching.

Looking out from the kitchen window she caught a glimpse of his new ride glowing in the sunset. It was a dark green Toyota Land cruiser, a bullish four-wheel drive with big shiny rims. It had some kangaroo bar affixed to its front, some antennas sticking out from the back section, and an array of spotlights sitting atop steely rails. The big car clearly boasted a military image. It was roofless! That explained the motorcycle’s demise. She forgave him.

She heard he was playing with Lennon and Yuki in the front yard for a while. She heard he was at the main door. She heard he was talking with his sister Josephine in the living room. There was a little dance in her steps as she walked to greet him.

He was surprised to see her, very surprised.

She knew why. They had not met in years, and she had not told him about her visit today. He immediately called the hotel where he worked, saying he needed to take leave – mother is sick. Josephine had overheard. She laughed as she told her that was not the first time he made his mother sick.

After a long dinner at the Lawai’s residence she asked if he could drive her to Miri town as she needed to buy some stuff. On condition, he had told her, that she must not expect to be home very soon. She whispered him a YES.

She finished her window shopping and actual buying at Electra House Shopping Mall around 9PM. He asked if she liked to wind up at his regular hangout and meet some of his friends. But without waiting for an answer from her he had driven the car into a parking bay in Persiaran Kabur. They ended up meeting the friends in a low-noise bar with a funny name – Follow Me. The friends were band members from the Philippines, three guys and two girls. One of the Filipinas looked fabulous. She seemed overfriendly with him.

After a couple of round of draft beer at the bar island – Whisky Coke for her –, he told them a story of a frog and a little fly. Six years later the frog remained frog. They laughed. Meanwhile the fly had grown up to become a princess. They cheered. Kiss the frog, said the friends as they turned to look at Princess Fanny. “Hell no,” said he, “because for some uncanny reason the fly and the frog are cousins!”

They simultaneously let out a big OOH. They pointed at his disappointed look and they had laughed louder. She had to laugh, too. The Pinoy were funny when they made fun of their friend.

On the way home before 11PM the frog had asked if the fly liked to swim in the sea. The fly said a stroll in the beach was appropriate for the two cousins. The frog stepped on the accelerator, swerved the car sharply to the other lane on their right. On he went driving in the green. It flattened some grass, ran over some watermelons, knocked down some insects. On he went driving in the sand. It crushed a few crabs before the big wheels stopped moving.

She finally stopped screaming.

She screamed again when she realized the car was actually in the water.

At least four tyres had submerged. The headlights revealed gentle waves from the sea were heading in their direction, reminding the Toyota that was a bad idea. The big mean BJ40 obliged. It switched to reverse drive until it rested proudly on hard-packed sand.

The driver turned out all lights, killed the engine with a twist of the key. He stepped out, walked to her side of the car. He opened the door for her, offered his hand as she climbed down, albeit warily, from a vehicle robust enough it had better use in some logging camp. This was definitely not a car for first date. She hated his driving, too.

As quickly as her feet had touched the floor of white sand she had forgotten about the mean car behind her. As her sight was familiarizing with condition in the moonlit night the surrounding had slowly materialised. She got delighted when she finally got the clearer picture where on earth she was at.

Eagerly she explored the beach in the moonlit night. She had sprinted to the nearest water line she had sighted some 40 metres away, touched the seawater and played chase with the waves. She tried another place, some 60 metres away. She jumped about. She knew she was happy.

The man was standing beside his car, some distance away. He bellowed, “Have fun. This is my turf!”

Of course she was having fun.

That was about half an hour ago, before he spoilt the fun.

She hurries off. Beneath her feet the sand splashes. Above her head the hair flutters in the wind. The man follows her from behind. She turns to say, “Unless we change the subject our conversation is over.”

He says okay, he rests his case. She knows he is lying.

She stops in her track, allowing him to catch up.

Without any more exchange between the two they roam on what appear to be a blanket of white sands as a big crescent moon is hanging high in the sky shining down on all creations below. At some distance to the west from here shimmering lights from oil platforms in South China Sea dotted the horizon. The night is bright, very bright. They are in Bakam Beach. The beach appears longer and wider in the moon light. Weather is fine. The sea is calm and the breeze all refreshing. It marks the passing of the last monsoon in 1996.

Their footprints in the sand have covered some distance. The moon beams with delight as the duo make a lazy turn around. They retrace the trail leading all the way back to the point from where the straying has started nearly an hour ago.

She is in Miri town en route Kuching City. She will spend some times with her sister in Kuching. Three days later she will be in the clouds again, flying from Kuching to Kuala Lumpur where she has been selected to attend a two-month training course at a flight attendant school in the capital city of Malaysia.

She and 600 other students will be given training in areas of flight safety procedures, emergency response, and food service, grooming and social etiquette as well as learning how to walk elegantly, among other things. She does not expect easy times, as she has been reminded the students will be observed by the school staff right from day one. Their progress will be monitored closely. Some of the students will make the cut; a few others will be dropped. Lucky was what she felt during the interview last month. Now she is very sure a plane is waiting for her somewhere, for she has done her homework and she has all the good stuff. Her prayers had been answered. Soon, she will be flying in a Boeing, thus begins her career as air stewardess with Malaysia Airlines.

The airlines industry in her country has seen a tremendous growth in recent years. Coinciding with their efforts to increase number of destinations internationally and domestically they made the call for additional aircraft crews. She has answered. That uniform sure fits her nicely. It represents her future as well as her Dream-Comes-True.

Starting off from a humble beginning she is now a small step away to being wholly independent but already she gets the pleasure from making choices of her own, what few there is for now. People like this man who is walking beside her now will only be a tiny spot in the ground below. He can continue entrapping himself in his warped perspective about life’s reality. She will see life from a broader perspective, from the clouds above. Next time she sees him she will ask him if his thinking out of the box has made him any wiser – if ever she wants to see him again.

They are still not talking. Good. Walking silently in the moonlit night is the better treat.

She is wearing casual tonight, her favourite set – a light blue long sleeves soft cotton shirt to go with a pair of stonewash denim jeans, some bangles around her wrist, a tiny necklace and a pair of white earrings. He goes black – black tee shirt and a pair of black jeans, except his Polo Club wrist watch is silver metallic. His light brown Caterpillar boots are flirting with her white vegan wedge sandals in the car.

She has always likes the idea of taking a stroll in a beach, at night, and with someone she knew is a reliable escort. Provided the escort can keep his mouth shut during the walk. She had spent nearly all her growing years in Lung Dara, a township by the Baram River. All she had been seeing was river, sometime flood. On several occasions over the last two years she had visited Miri Town, Bintulu and Brunei but this is her first night outing in the seaside, especially gratifying in this fashion with the beach so wide and long it appeared like a desert, and that she is the only girl on it.

She will remember this bright night. In the white sand she can make out a vague shadow she knows is hers. The waves move back and forth in the water, gracefully. For a moment there she thought the sea was singing hymns. She will probably see many more nights like this next year in KK or Bali or Hawaii. But the first of its kind will always has a special place in one’s memory.

She gazes at the man walking beside her. She wants him to remember her for how she looks tonight. Erase his earlier memories of her. Those were the days when she was, as his analogy has said, a fly, an ugly fly. No doubt she cherishes and treasures her childhood years. But wherever she is concerned in this man’s memory she needed it altered, not updated but altered.

Surely he has seen she is no longer the same dispensable pillion rider he had dropped off anywhere whenever he saw a Rose, Marie or Farida on the road. He did that several times to her. She hated it. The bigger girl waved and smiled at him. Next thing she knew that girl had taken her place on the back of the tall motorcycle. She was told to walk home. She was only a kid then while the other girls were already in their late teens with breasts and buttocks.

She had consoled herself it was only natural for the better girl to have earned the right to ride with her handsome cousin. She accepted the let-down, graciously. But it could not belie the hurt.

Two years later she grew into her sweet seventeen. The other girls only grew older. Men started wooing her, they did their best to get her attention and a smile from her had sent one of them knocking into a lamp post. Boys in school fought over her, phone calls, greetings cards and letters adored her.

She knows they said she is the prettiest girl in Baram. They said her fair complexion and smooth skin glow in the sun. They said her face, long and square, is complemented by her long straight silky hair. She knows, thank you, she knows. She knows she turns heads as her beauty dances in their face, firing the imagination of the cheeky ones among the men. She knows she has grown taller than Lillian. While that skinny girl has remained small in the chest she has gained some flesh, curves, and cleavages in all the right places. She strutted her stuff on a podium and was crowned beauty queen.

No Rose, Marie or Farida can take her place on anyone’s bike ever again. That’s a fact! But he was not there to see all that. All the praises, the compliments, the sashes and the tiaras would not be complete until he can endorse them. He was the rude judge she had wanted to impress. That judge had only seen her while she was still a miserable little fly, and he had in fact made his opinion heard. She was a late bloomer. But after she had magically transformed into a butterfly he had disappeared. This is not fair!

He is no longer as tall as he used to be, either because she has grown to 167 centimetres tall or he has stopped growing. Walking alongside him she estimates he is nearly six-foot tall. His chest and shoulders have grown bigger, but on the whole he is lean. Proportionate. Despite of his reputation his hands are not bulging with muscles, but they appear strong and able. He still swaggers when he walks.

He is an attractive man, especially charming when he was in the bar earlier. He has the blackest of hair she has ever seen on anyone’s head. He keeps the hair short. He is easily hairy if not for the clean-shaven image, although he still keeps the sideburns. That lopsided smile on his oblong face is a mischievous smile, always. He has sharp face. It also gives him a macho look to go well with his bad boy’s disposition. The ruggedness is complemented by that small scar in his right cheek.

But the scar is easily overlooked given his captivating dark brown eyes. The eye lashes, having naturally curled, make the eyes look affectionate and flirtatious even when he did not mean to flirt. That is the winning feature on his person – the eye. He has eyes of a girl. Of course that fabulous Filipina had seen that, too.

She heard a Ting! sound from the Zippo again. She turns to see it has burnt another Dunhill for this pretty man. It is windy but Zippo fire cannot easily fail. She supposes cigarette is his favourite girlfriend he must kiss her often. Another girlfriend kisses his lips – Carlsberg beer. If she has not known his family very well it would not strike her that she is now walking with the son of a preacher man.

But she knows this man quite well.

Funny she can say that after watching him for only a couple of years.

Prior to tonight they had not met in six years. He was aged 19; she barely turned 15 when they last saw each other in Lung Dara. In the recent years when she visited Miri Town he was still doing his studies in Kuching City. He is now back in Miri. But she is flying to Kuala Lumpur as soon as tomorrow.

His mother has told her he is not keen on pursuing a degree. He does many jobs after his graduation, some of which are mystery even to his family. As for now he works in a medium-size hotel in Persiaran Brooke, from dusk to dawn. They can only guess he is doing something else in between. Helena said he likes to do contract jobs, works for an hour for a day pay. Such was his explanation when she asked why he could not stay very long at one place. So there must be something in that hotel that keeps him for five months now. But she knows her children do not do drugs.

Jeffrey works temporarily as tourist guide in Mulu National Park. Josephine is happy to become another pleasant looking decorative item in their home, lazing in the couch while watching TV or browsing through magazines, helping out her mother in the kitchen and her garden, chatting with friends, or responding quickly to a screaming phone.

While Jeffrey takes after his father in look and short stature, the other two are slanted toward their mother’s. While Jeffrey and Josephine’s attitude resemble that of their mother, Jack is as brutally rebellious as his father is hard-headedly religious. They’re trying to outdo each other!

JACK LEJAU LAWAI is a notorious young man. He is badass. When she says notorious it is not an impression; it is information. Forget about his age is only 25, start counting upward, before anyone could get the correct proportion of his notoriety. When she says badass emphasis must be given to the word bad, forget the ass because he is not. Nearly the whole of Baram knew WHAT he is. They were surprised he can get to live pass age 21.

She would say he is problematic if they keep sending him to jail, but he has not been to prison. He is difficult because people find it a torture to understand his justification. He is a Piscean – unpredictable, vague and secretive. Unpredictable in oh so many ways that it hurts.

But BAD is not exactly the right word, because he is not all bad. He is also glamour, he has a crusade. If she can throw a buzzword into the mix – he is their pain and their pride. She supposes his mother has summed it all up fittingly, that Jack Lawai is never an easy decision for anyone to make.

That is why she is here with him tonight. She could not decide.

Her elder sisters, nephews and nieces, too, cannot decide. The younger kids cheered him on in the same noisily manner they had been fascinated by a mutant Wolverine they watched on TV. They looked up to him as if he was their bigger brother, their hero.

She is walking beside their wolf-man now. She has decided.

She has decided she has had enough of the mystery. She has decided she must confront the mystery for one last time. A mystery will continue to enchant if she continue to look at him. She must look away. She has decided.

As surely as new tide would reform the shoreline, old buddies Jack Lejau Lawai and Fanny Wong-Anyie will part ways in the morning. She to her future; Jack to his whatever. They still have tonight.

Before she goes she needs to have a word with this mystery.

* * *

1988

BARAM

Sound of a motorcycle hummed up in a distance but already five children were overjoyed. With great anticipation etched on their faces they dashed to the door, and there they waited. They knew whose vehicle was heading in their direction and they knew for certain he meant to stop at their home in the hilly neighbourhood. To the ears and mind of these children the sound marked the arrival of their favourite knight on his steed coming to grace their little hamlet. Their fantasy had returned.

The road ahead having ascertained a Yamaha Enduro 125cc, painted in black and silver, clambered up the slope to their home in Usun Padang. Everyone watched in silent until a shout from the rider had startled them, only to be answered with uncontrollable excitement from the five kids already crowding the small veranda. Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack! They sang his name.

Their Uncle Jack had returned to entertain their world with tales from his many exploits in bigger towns. Uncle Jack, with a pair of black glasses in his face, was armed with a Zippo lighter in his right hand and a fresh cigarette between his lips. He now stood tall in their full view at the foot of the stairs, counting heads in case some slant-eye monsters had taken any of them. He counted over and over because he said they had kept moving. They stood still, waiting for his next command. His big thumb did a little trick for their amusement. It snapped at the Zippo, there was a sharp sound, and out came fire. The five-strong audience clapped their hands, cheering him on as he burnt his cigarette.

The man sat in a long sofa in the TV room, the children’s favourite chamber. They did not mind giving the best seat in the house to their honourable guest. The children, his nephews and nieces, aged between nine and four, gathered on the wooden floor in front of him. Hardy, the eldest of the kids, jumped onto Jack’s lap and asked if he had settled the score with AhChong. Jack nodded and the boys celebrated. When they asked for the full account, Jack said they needed to bribe him with a cup of coffee before his dry mouth could leak something to them. Kane and Morris hurried to the kitchen. They instructed the master chef, their mother that was, to prepare the best coffee in the house for Uncle Jack. The woman ignored them. She instead went over to chat with Jack. She returned to the stove when a kettle was whistling job well done. As per her two sons’ request, Livan dutifully prepared the best black coffee in the house for their guest.

Hardy did it carefully and slowly. With his two hands on the saucer he made sure the hot cup of Nescafe he was transporting to the living room did not spill a drop. Kane and Morris kept to his side, as if they had feared Hardy could bungle the job. The long journey of a coffee cup was accomplished without untoward incident along the way. The kids waited anxiously, in silent, as the man drank from the hot cup. Uncle Jack put the cup down on the awaiting saucer held by Hardy. He gave a thumb up. Annie sprinted to the kitchen to report to her mother how much Uncle Jack had liked the coffee. The woman smiled. She knew the 17-year-old uncle was their favourite.

They looked up to him as if he was the most interesting person they had ever spoken to. He dressed up nicely, projected confidence in his speech and manners. He was funny, too. He made faces, the children found it hilarious enough that they had gone rolling on the floor. Most interestingly, Jack spoke to them as if they were his friends. So he told them how he had settled the score with AhChong.

Noisy was their laughter that Fanny had overheard them from the bathroom. She was delighted, too. She had to do a sport curriculum in school that afternoon. Jack was here to transport her to school before the tall motorcycle carried him to some place else in Lung Dara. He lived in Daleh Kayan, about 15-minute by bike from here.

13-year-old Fanny stayed with her older sister Livan in that government barrack in Usun Padang for years. Livan’s husband, a Bidayuh from Kuching, worked for Agriculture Department of Sarawak with its sub-district office located in Lung Dara. It was full house anytime of the day in that little abode of theirs but the eight occupants seemed happy with sharing in that two-bedroom barrack. Fanny walked an hour everyday to and fro Lung Dara secondary school.

Lung Dara was a riverside township in Middle Baram, nesting in a plain with a total size equivalent of four Miri runways put together. Population: 4,011; 80 per cent indigenous natives, 15 per cent Chinese, five per cent Unknown. Primary transport was motorcycles, while pickup trucks were limited to moving loads. Lung Dara took its name from a small stream nearby. ‘Lung’, pronounced loong, was Kayan’s for river mouth. It referred to tributary that fed into the Baram River. Commonly, settlement near the lung was named after it.

The Kayans in Baram valleys had another name for the river – ‘Telang Usan’, loosely translated as abundance of rains. Telang Usan was usually referred to the part of Baram River where Kayan and Kenyah’s settlements were found; in general, upriver from Lung Meludi.

Having isolated in the rural and accessible only by river in the 80s, the small township took pride in being the urban-to-rural transit point for government development programmes, planned and directed by people in big offices in state capital Kuching some 1000 kilometres away. While the progress was slow, except during general elections when the many projects suddenly worked overtime, the small town thrived on the government’s ambition, promises and politics of development. Lung Dara was a district in the making, given its location in the heartland of the indigenous populace.

Upriver from Lung Dara, several tens of Kayan or Kenyah longhouses were found along the great stream that snaked its way up to Lio Mato. On went the river to Usun Apau Range in the Sarawaw-Kalimantan border. Nomadic and semi-nomadic Penans built settlements everywhere they roamed. It easily took three-day journey by boat to cover the length of Baram River, from Miri to Lio Mato. Toward the Sarawak-Kalimantan border, the terrain proved impassable to even the lightest of longboat.

Downriver from Lung Dara, several tens of Kayan or Kenyah longhouses were found all the way down to Lung Meludi. Baram natives, loosely estimated 60,000, were the Kayans, Kenyahs, Sebobs, Moreks, Berawans, Kiputs, Kelabits, Sabans and Penans; the first two being numerous. From Lung Meludi downriver until the river met the ocean at Kuala Baram in Miri Division, the territory belonged to the Ibans and Malays. Chinese traders occupied bazaars in Lung Meludi, Lung Dara and Lung Akah. A few Chinese merchants still plied the traditional trade routes in boats. The floating shops, nearing extinction, offered cooking oil, rice, clothes, candles, cigarettes, liquors, condoms and pass-expiry canned food.

Given the fact that many villages in Baram were only accessible by boat in the 80s the importance of Lung Dara’s role in Sarawak rural development programme had heightened. While many other good stuff were in the pipeline, Lung Dara already had projects from agriculture and fisheries departments, sub-district offices of land and survey, government-funded schools – both secondary and primary – for thousands of school-going natives from as far as Sarawak-Kalimantan border. The Chinese residents, elite community of Lung Dara, built their own well established primary school for their children, and children of the Lung Dara natives who wished to attain Mandarin education.

The Christians, unwilling to be outclassed, built their academy, made of chiselled and sawn wood and zinc roof, in a nearby forest where several tens of cadet pastors were trained for a couple of years before they were deployed to many churches in Baram Valleys where they inhabited until the good Lord sent them elsewhere. The influence of Christianity in Baram valleys was overwhelming, so much so that any attempt by Islam to set its footing here could easily draw futile.

Lung Dara Bazaar – a long row of three-block shophouse, partially made of sawn timber and bricks – was easily looked as a riverside town owing to its near distance to its immediate neighbour the river. In fact it was that close that a shout in the bazaar could startle a child bathing in the river. The bazaar hosted grocery stores, sundry shops, eateries, lodging houses, barber shops, garment shops, music stores, a wet market, and offices among others. Located nearby was a post office handling mails and simple banking transactions. A number of privately owned express boats – being primary public transports – docked in the wharves, competing for space with tugboats and barges, longboats, sampans and a number of speedboats.

The buzzing activities in and around Lung Dara rewarded the riverside township with spin-offs in the form of electricity, treated pipe water, telephone, and TV programmes as clear as sports channel in bad weather. A police beat, minded by a small force of police constables and a sergeant stood guard near the post office and a polyclinic on one side and a residential area on the other side. Between them was a long straight gravel road leading to SMK Lung Dara, a government-funded secondary school, located in the outskirt of the riverside town.

Some miles up in the forest at the back of Lung Dara was a big quarry. It produced clinkers for export to Miri. Several times a day folks heard dynamite blasts boomed dangerously in the distance. In a distant forest elsewhere, trees were fell and logged for economic benefit of the country. The loggers were mainly natives while the executives were mostly Chinese. They habitually thronged this riverside town at month end for supplies and provisions. The townsfolk happily put up with their presence for a night or two. The riverside town occasionally revelled in festivities such as Chinese New Year, Christmas, and Gawai Dayak.

It was particularly hectic during school holidays when the boarding schools let loose many hundreds of boys and girls into the streets to look for transports to carry them home, either up river or down river. After the short spell, Lung Dara returned to her sleep. Life here, in comparison to Lung Meludi and Miri, was usually idle. No crimes, so everyone thought. This was how it had been since the 80s.

Native populace predominate Lung Dara, given their vast number. Yet a close-knit hundreds-strong Chinese community had great influence over the livelihood of many people, hence why the local sociopolitical had edged towards that influence. Intermarriage was only one way – native girls married into Chinese homes and become one of their own. The reverse of it was virtually non-existence although the native men were generally better looking.

The Chinese lived in comfortable homes in the ever-expanding neighbourhood behind the bazaar. The natives, especially those from Kayan, Kenyah and Kelabit tribes, copied the Chinese and build their own double-storey detached houses in areas surrounding the township. Their settlement concentrated in Daleh Kayan, 15 minutes by motorcycles from the riverside town.

While the natives lacked business knowledge and were made to rely on employment in timber industry, the Chinese fared better in trades and enterprises. The least educated Chinese work in the express boats as driver or navigator, or ticket attendant. Back then in Baram, these men from the express boats had the right to boast and swagger as these jobs were accorded some kind of glamour – probably equivalent of pilots and cabin crews – in the eye of some native girls who had never travelled beyond Baram River. Comical, yet that was the fact of social life in the 80s.

The Chinese controlled the township. Their associations controlled prices in the marketplace. Price hikes were rampant and went unchecked. But who had the nerves to stand up against them when gangs of thugs in the bazaar were also Chinese. The natives were generally submissive. The Chinese had their ways. The natives could not compromise only one thing – Christian faith.

This was the way it was here since the 80s.

Jack Lawai grew up in Lung Dara since he was aged 11. At age 13 he was selected to continue his secondary education at a highflying college in Miri Town where the best of the best were educated. He returned to Daleh Kayan in Lung Dara, once a year, only during school holidays, stayed home for two months before returning to Miri. The Lawai lived moderately but comfortably in a four-bedroom double-story wooden house by the Baram River. It was a house presented to them by Jack’s grandfather in 1968. The house was nestling in a huge compound surrounded by coconut trees, papaya, mango and rambutan trees. In an open area at the back of the house, his mother planted corns and other vegetables. He liked their home. Relatives and friends from all around visited the Lawai at their residence every now and then for a sleepover or get-together barbecue in the yard. No alcohol.

People did not take much notice of Jack Lawai in these years as he was not having much to look at for. He was only one of the small boys in his class. But at age 16 a sudden leap in physical development was noticed in the Kayan boy, transforming him into one of the tallest among his classmates. He continued to grow in length, width and breadth. By the time he was age 17 the transformation had worked overtime.

He finished his Form Five secondary education at the college at the end of 1988. He was given the luxury to choose between continuing secondary education at the college the following year, for Form Six level, and pursuing diploma level at some university of his choice. He chose a long vacation in Lung Dara.

He returned home a couple of weeks before Christmas. As soon as the year turned, the riverside town was given a rude awakening. Jack Lawai poked at the hornet’s nest. He launched a one-man crusade. His wrath was aimed in the direction of what he called Chinatown. The Chinese in Lung Dara were no longer untouchable.

1989

LUNG DARA

It usually happened after his parents had gone off on a long trip to other villages in Upper Baram. Such trips were frequent. By the time the parents returned to Lung Dara the trouble had been properly concluded with the other guys warded in their own homes. His mother went to check on him. Jack was healthy, he was in his reading. She safely deduced nothing as frightening as rumoured had actually taken place. His father had had second opinion but by this time he and his son were having some sort of a cold war of their own.

In the night when he was left unchecked the JACK LEJAU LAWAI emerged from among the piles of books. He picked up a switchblade and a pair of gloves and a wooden club.

On he went to roam in the dark streets in search of his next victim. The Chinese called him Jack-Lihai for his show-offs. Some others called him Jack the Hand, which was rather fitting, because he habitually broke people’s hand after he had floored them.

It took him only a year to make his mark everywhere in this riverside town. Beat the boys kiss the girls, until not many of these two were left untested by the Lung Dara Devil. He nearly ruled over the Chinatown, too, had it not been for his father who had interfered.

An old woman said the Lung Dara Chinese must have done him wrong when the vengeful fellow was a small boy, and that his anger must have bottled up inside him until he was big enough to take it up with them.

His sister said it could have started after a schoolteacher had walked into their home in Daleh Kayan to scold her mother for taking her to church despite of knowing she had a replacement class that Saturday afternoon. Coincidentally, the teacher was a local Chinese man.

His brother said it could have started after Jack cautioned a man against speeding in his territory. He said the motorcycle was too noisy that the noise pollutant had scared the family’s hens from laying more eggs in the barn. Coincidentally, the man was a local Chinese.

His neighbours said it could have started after Jack trained his two dogs to chase after anyone who looked Chinese found within the boundary of his fenceless lawn. It was often started with him shooting marble from a slingshot in the direction of the unsuspected pedestrian or biker. The dogs dutifully picked up that signal.

AhKwang said Jack-Lihai’s outrageous territorial behaviour had offended some people. He and three others from the bazaar went over to confront him at his home one afternoon. He returned home with a bloodied head, afoot, because Jack had thrown their motorcycles into the river.

His adopted brother said it could have started from that incident as it had triggered a series of bigger clashes afterward. Chinatown uncles, cousins and in-laws eventually joined their younger relatives in the fight with Jack-Lihai in Daleh Kayan. He occasionally aided Jack in the brawling, because he thought they were protecting their turf, and of course it was fun to be on the winning side. He did not, however, participated in the skirmishes when Jack eventually took the fight to the bazaar and several other places in Lung Dara, occurring almost every weekend, lasting over a year. Because by then it was no longer fun, as the fights involved swords and triad members. Jack had suffered a number of scars on his body, head and one in his face. But, his opponents had had bigger scars.

His nephew Hardy said Uncle Jack had two strong hands, so strong that with a single blow he had knocked unconscious an adult pig that had wanted to attack him. While fighting against the Chinese men he wasted no time with Kungfu flicks; he charged head on like an angry tiger and fought like a drunken cowboy. But no Chinaman can pull him down because he also had two legs as strong as horse’s legs he could kick the Chinamen into the river together with the whole of China. Hardy knew this because that was what his friends had told him about what they had heard from their friends.

It could have started after Hardy’s exaggerated story was again exaggerated afterward.

His friends said it could have started after Jack had introduced some rules in Lung Dara, himself enforcing these rules. How many rules, only himself knew. The few rules known to the friends were: Shops belonging to Chinese merchants who are known for fleecing the natives are his favourite targets; no one, including the teachers, shall harass any of his relatives and family members; native girls can go out only with native boys. The enforcement each time was prompt and brutal.

Marie Lian Bala said go, Jack, go!

Rose Ubung Wan said give it to them, Jack!

Siti Farida said oh, Jack, thank you.

Whatever had been the actual reason for the riverside town had turned into a fighting arena overnight it was no longer mattered. Somebody or two-somebody had started the fire somewhere. Things were already in motion.

Jack Lawai was on his own during the early chapter of his trouble-making. He had some following soon afterward but often the friends opted out when the trouble had involved their Chinese friends. It was Jack-Lihai versus Chinatown gangs most of the times.

In the beginning the dust-ups were restricted to tongue-lashing, fist fighting, or wrestling between them. To the folks in town they were only some kids trying their hands on man’s game. It did not occur to them just yet Jack-Lihai meant to take the entire Chinatown. Rematch was frequent. Whenever they had a falling-out they would name a place and time where they could duke it out on a Saturday night. Sometime the weekend fight did not materialise but when both parties showed up it was often bloody. The victor each time was Jack. Hardy’s exaggerated account was correct at some point.

Jack did not waste time doing Kungfu. He charged head on like an angry tiger. But he did not fight like a drunken cowboy. He fought like a professional kick boxer in a one-round knockout match. Meaning, unleash! No one knew where he had had his combat training, his stance was proper and his balance was maintained all the time. His movement was deliberate and calculated and harmonious. His reflect action was swift. Jack did not only fight with boys his age. His opponents were mainly men in middle and late 20s as well as late 30s. They worked in tugboats, express boats, construction sites or logging camps. These men were muscular. But Jack’s hands and feet were stronger. One on one fight was scarce; it was Jack against four or five men most of the time.

Jack had on several occasions aborted a fight appointment. He showed up at a fist fight only to find his opponents had brought along swords with them.

So, he started to practice using swords as well!

Name the game, place and time, he told them. They told him No-Weapon. But the Chinese had never failed to renegade their own terms. So he carried a long sword with him all the time. He placed it in a sheath in the side of his scrambler motorcycle, beside a baseball bat and a mace with chain.

With the introduction of weapons and participation of adults in the clashes, Lung Dara had becoming worried. Hardcore triad members from Lung Meludi and Miri had also joined the bloody party. He suffered several slash wounds during fights with them. Strangely, healing process in him was faster than ordinary people. He just could not quit. He instead came to be very confident with his ability. After nearly a year of street fighting, gaining heaps of experience each time, he thought he could take on anyone, including a Bruce Lee.

Toward the end of 1989, the gangs in Lung Dara bazaar had grouped together. They rode out under one banner – Chinese. They meant to take out Jack-Lihai in Daleh Kayan.

It was two months before his 19^th birthday when news broke out about an attempt to defeat him. But by this time Jack was not alone. His reputation had caught the attention of several Kayan guys who had had long-held grudges against the Chinatown gangs. His racial sentiments could relate to them. They had joined him in his crusade. His brother Jeffery and adopted brother Sho-rak, a Penan in early 20s, were ready to offer him some assistance should the occasion call for it.

It was only a matter of time before the battle, Chinese versus Kayan, could occur.

Then it happened on one Sunday night.

* * *

1990

DALEH KAYAN

Jack and Sho-rak on the back of a tall motorcycle stormed a badminton court in Usun Padang where they found a number of Chinese were in the middle of a sword practice with their seniors. He had heard about this place and what they did here since two weeks ago. He was sure it was here where they trained the boys to kill a wild boar, if not a Kayan Jack-Lihai.

As all heads turned to the intruders, all activities halted; all samurais had risen. Ignoring the many swords, his bike charged forth. It stopped in front of a 30-something man whom he presumed was their sword master. He looked him squarely in the eye. He asked that man to convey his message to his brothers, uncles, or the entire clan to meet him in Daleh Kayan. Now!

An hour before midnight, half an hour after he had named the game, place and time, the Chinatown now came with their answer. It was the right answer. A gang on motorcycles converged on Daleh Kayan.

Primary school. School holidays. Empty. It was a dark night but he could see the headlights had stopped at exactly where he had expected it. He had picked this meeting place carefully. Lying between him and them was a football field, with a few light poles standing erect near the field. The streetlight was dim but enough to show brutality that could unfold in a matter of when.

The motorcycles made a long line in their side of the field, facing his side of the field. By his estimation the Chinese fielded 70 braves. Meaning: 70 swords at least. This could be the full cavalry of the Chinatown. If he had not known what kind of force he had been messing with now he saw it. They started to make noise.

The revving up of engines, the clattering of metals and all the clamouring were actually very unnerving. As noise from across the field had somewhat troubled him it must had troubled his friends as well. Lining up behind him were his men, 17-strong. They were armed with swords, spears, and shields. He turned to one of the friends and asked him what his race was. Kayan, said he. He turned to another friend and asked the same. He was given the same answer. Then he told everyone to remember one thing: Kayan never cowers in the face of danger!

The gangs had garrisoned along the sideline of the football field – the width, not the length –, with the Kayans on one side and the Chinese on the other side. The Chinese were mounted force; the Kayans were units of pikemen, afoot, except Jack, he was sitting in his motorcycle with a long sword resting on his shoulder.

It was not a girl who started the fight this time neither was it a screaming motorcycle. The Penans started it this time.

Earlier in the day, two Penans had bargained with a shopkeeper in the bazaar. They wanted to purchase a pair of jeans but they said the price was too expensive for them. The shopkeeper asked how much they were willing to pay for it. After some exhausting negotiation the shopkeeper was eventually willing to sell the jeans to them at the price they had asked. But for some reasons, one Penan changed his mind, said he did not want to buy the pants. The complication started from there.

The shopkeeper insisted once he had agreed to their asking price they must buy it. The Penans said that was not right. By then their argument had invited attention of some members of the Chinatown gang. They dragged the two men outside and bashed them up pretty bad.

The Penans were among 13 men from Upper Baram who stayed overnight at Lawai’s home before they were to continue the journey to Lung Bedian in Apoh River the following day. They were Sho-rak’s relatives on his Penan side. They reported the incident to him. He was terribly upset by the news. Sho-rak was a stoutly-built young man but he was not the type of people who inclined to violence. He usually reported matters concerning Penans to his Kayan father, Reverend Lawai that was. But the reverend was away in Lung Meludi that week. So Sho-rak reported it to his heir. Before he knew it the matter had escalated into the manner it stood now.

The five-foot long sword on Jack’s shoulder shimmered in the streetlight, it being a grisly reminder the blade was sharp. It was a double-edge sword, big and heavy. Jack had used this sword on two occasions. He knocked the motorcyclists off their machine easily with it. The men did not die from the blow, because the blade was sheathed.

The sword was made by a Penan blacksmith in Silat River. He had showed the blacksmith a photo of a long sword commonly used by Knights of Templar in medieval era and had asked if the blacksmith could make him a sword by the same design. Four months later he visited the Penan village again. When he asked how much he had to pay for it the Penan blacksmith had instead asked for his willingness to form a sebile’ekship with him and his family.

He had accepted the invitation. It was since then he became a sebile’ek, Penan for brother, with the blacksmith. This practice of brotherhood was common between a Penan and a Kayan in the old way of the natives. The Penan traded with only his Kayan brother and no other Kayans. On his part, the Kayan provided his Penan counterpart with shelter and food during his visit to the Kayan’s village. In the broader meaning of it, the Kayan protected the Penan and his family. It was a lifetime bond. The blacksmith and the Penans had had troubled pronouncing the ‘X’ when Jack Lawai named his sword ‘Excalibur’. He just had to laugh as they kept on trying.

The blacksmith’s son was one of the Penans who was assaulted over the jeans in the Lung Dara bazaar, hence this confrontation.

As they had arrived earlier at the school, they had planted bamboo stakes in the ground behind them. They had taken position in an opening made narrow by two buildings flanking them left and right. The strategy, as loosely laid out to them: Retreat to the cluster of bamboo stakes when the Chinese come charging; you know what to do from there; Ajeng Ngau, Wan Mering, and Dison Luhat, keep to my side... we’ll fight them in the open.

Half an hour had passed.

Four motorcycles left the Chinese frontline.

They headed toward him and his army. As they got nearer he recognised them as gang leaders, one of them in particular had gotten him alarmed.

Each time he looked at that short, stout man in the bazaar he would remember a bulldog. Around the age of 35, folks called him ChuMeng. This man owned a pig farm and a slaughter house because he was a butcher. They said he was fearless and ruthless. They said he had killed several men in the past.

He had asked his friends to retreat a few steps into the darkness. The four motorcycles stopped in front of him. No weapons on them.

The Chinese had come to offer terms.

ChuMeng told him to stop harassing his friends else the Chinese had to contract some people to hurt him. He knew exactly what that meant. There was an incident of five men from Miri travelling in a speed boat to Lung Naha’a in early 80s. They assaulted a man in that village in front of several village folks. The victim miraculously survived the multiple wounds but he lost the use of a hand and a leg. The five strangers returned to their speedboat and disappeared. Assassins!

Other terms: He must allow AhLeong to return to Lung Dara; and that he must pay for his drink when he visits coffee shops in the bazaar; he must apologize to Mr Lok over the incident in school; he must compensate AhBeng for breaking his hand, compensate AhJang for throwing his brand new motorcycle into the river, compensate AhSing for the dog bites, he must kill the dog; on top of that he must pay them RM1000 if he wants to settle this confrontation tonight without any incident. If he could agree to all their terms they will allow him save travel in Lung Dara without anyone harassing him.

He had not expected this. He came here to fight, not to pay people. But ChuMeng was such a threat he could not ignore. He could try to negotiate on the amount of compensations asked of him. But if his late grandfather, Penghulu Anyie Ding, was with him tonight the penghulu had probably wanted to force his own terms. The Kayan chieftain had seen this side of Lung Dara Chinese during his lifetime.

During the colonial era in Sarawak, the Englishmen had settled a number of Chinese merchants in Lung Dara among the indigenous natives as to convenient trades between them. In the later years, as their number swelled, the Lung Dara Chinese had occasionally clashed with the Kayans. Following another misunderstanding between them in 1960, the penghulu had travelled downriver from Upper Baram together with several hundreds armed men. The Chinese kapitan, accompanied by some Australian missionaries, had held a peace talk with Penghulu Anyie Ding the following day. After much persuasion the Kayans eventually ceased the hostility thus sparing Lung Dara bazaar from total demolition. Relationship between the Kayans and the Chinese in Lung Dara saw better days ever since. As if nothing was learnt from history their grandsons were now at each other’s throats.

He finally decided what best to do.

He brought his Excalibur down.

From the back of the motorcycle he pulled out a gun – five-shot pump gun.

Chinatown flinched. The gun pushed a buckshot cartridge into the firing chamber. It cracked spine-chilling sound as to announce the barrel was loaded and ready to blast. If this was a poker play, he had just made an All-In. Chinatown must call, or fold.

He gave them his terms instead.

Go, said he, but if they cannot agree to his terms they had better be ready for bloodbath because he will start shooting in their direction, reload, shoot, reload, shoot, until all Chinese flee from the Kayan town.

The four men were moving back to the Chinese frontline when ChuMeng’s motorcycle had stopped. The other three did likewise. They sensed something was about to turn ugly. The bulldog took a last long look at Jack-Lihai, studying his body language. The Kayan had named his game. ChuMeng seemed ready to call. Jack probably had a straight or a flush in his hand. Or was it a bluff.

ChuMeng turned his motorcycle around and headed to the Chinatown.

Chinatown army went noisy again. This time they argued among themselves. But the Lawai and the Kayans with him did not understand Chinese. They watched as the Chinese on motorcycles slowly moved... away, leaving the scene. Two minutes later it was all quiet on the other side of the battlefield. The matter had been resolved.

Jack’s terms: Drop all your terms. From now on, it’s your call. I won’t start anymore trouble with you if you don’t start trouble with me. Identify my friends, the Kayans, the Kenyahs and the Penans. Don’t make trouble with any one of them if you don’t want any trouble with me. They only wanted peace so give them peace or I’ll give you hell.

As ChuMeng rode back to his swine-smelly home he laughed himself silly.

It was so not like him to have walked out of a confrontation without blood stains on his shirt. But he should not have been there in the first place. That was not his match, not his class. How he hated his edgy friends for dragging him to a showdown with a small dog. Even his term was childish. There’s no money in it. He wanted only peace. Sure, we can give him peace. He’s much like his father after all.

He heard his thought again. Jack-Lihai is only a big fish in a small pond. He maybe notorious in Lung Dara, what with his karate and all, but he would not survive with the same attitude in bigger ponds. A young blood with a lot of confidence that’s all he’s got in his balls, like he was 15 years ago when he was a robust, crazy youth. That Kayan boy had many years ahead of him to learn the brunt of gangsterism; it ain’t a pleasant one. High chance the reality would hammer the sense into him and later send him home to become a God-seeking man like his father.

ChuMeng knew how much of a crazy young thug he once was. Still he was but not as crazy as the younger version of him. Was Jack-Lihai that crazy too? What would have happened in the field if they had charged at him regardless? Will he pull the trigger? Was that a bluff? ChuMeng remembered his younger self. Yes, I’ll do it. That’s why they’re called young and dangerous, and foolish.

On the other side of the town Jack pondered the same. That was a hell of a thing he had done. He had gambled on his life and life of his friends. Nah, life is a gamble anyway. Go big or don’t go at all. No doubt he had made a good plan in the day, anticipating all the moves his enemies were likely to make. But that plan had not included ChuMeng. When he saw bulldog ChuMeng he had had second thought. But when he heard their terms he came to be angry. When he was angry it was no turning back for him and everyone else.

It could have resulted in a tie if a battle had started between them. Everyone should have been lying dead in the football field.

He should be dead, too, the last one to fall of course. Already he had a cluster gun to his advantage, with which he could shoot down multiple targets in five quick successions in less than 30 seconds and reload in 30 seconds – and the bamboo stakes as their fortress. On top of that, he had expected to receive assistance from his stealth units: Sho-rak and his 13 Penans.

The Penan team was garrisoned inside two school buildings flanking the Kayan team in the narrow opening, overlooking the football field. In dark classrooms one floor up 14 blowpipes were aimed in the direction of the Chinatown gang. They were told to be ready to shoot darts at the Chinese, using poisonous darts, the same type of darts meant for wild boars. The Penan sharpshooters had waited for a gun blast from Jack for the battle to begin. But their commanding general had spared the Chinese. His grandfather could have done the same.

The Kayans and the Penans walked home, like brothers, like sebile’ek.

* * *

In principle, Chinatown and Jack-Lihai were observing a no-hostility stance.

General public in Lung Dara did not talk much about that incident in Daleh Kayan because such story was unbelievable. Even if it was true, the plausible reason why Jack Lawai was left unharmed was probably because the Chinese had no real intention to destroy him, on account of his father and his late grandfathers. His death in the hand of the Chinese was likely to trigger a widespread response afterward. The Kayans from Lung Liam and the Kenyahs from Lung San could be expected to converge on Lung Dara to avenge the grandson of two great chiefs, Penghulu Anyie Ding of Liam and Penghulu Gau Karing of San.

The folks did not want to talk about it. It also did not stop everyone from pondering the What-Ifs.

Even if there was such an agreement between the Kayans and the Chinese they said it was only a matter of time before a careless-someone cancelled out the truce. Little did they know that it was the coincidental presence of ChuMeng in that truce that had actually put much weight to it, and made binding its loose importance. Without him the agreement would be nothing but whisper in the night with slim chance to get to see the light of day. ChuMeng had some credential in the Lung Dara and Lung Meludi’s underground society. He was not the godfather, he was only a butcher. In a small pond like Lung Dara he was the bigger fish.

Matter of fact he did not say he had agreed or disagreed with the Kayan’s terms. He simply walked out of there. He did not represent Chinatown. He did not stop anyone from having a go at Jack-Lihai. It was his personal choice that he had spared the Kayan. But the Chinatown had chosen to follow his personal decision. Unless he changed his mind that was how it stood.

He needed to change his mind soon, because Jack Lawai kept his part of the bargain religiously.

He continued to bash up the Chinese because they continued to harass his friends after the friends had bashed up some Chinese because the Chinese had assaulted their Kayan friends last week after their friends had bashed up some Chinese last month because the Chinese had assaulted their Kayan friends last year. That was often his excuse – they started it, he finished it. A lengthy debate ensued in a coffeshop in the morning as they tried to figure out who actually had attacked who first. High was the tension yet the bad faith between them had not escalated into full-scale gang fight, on account of ChuMeng.

By now Jack Lawai had become a popular figure among the native guys and girls. They looked up to him as their leader, in bad times, doing bad things. Their number had slowly grown bigger. Jack, not exactly a social animal, was seldom seen among them. He was busy with either a girlfriend somewhere or his books at home; plenty of either one. But when he did show up in a certain weekend there was chance for a noisy party in the streets of Lung Dara.

There was this night, a crazy night, an unholy night filled with air of triumph over some unseen victory. It was definitely a night of the devils and rebels alike. Jack the Hand was a bit high that night. He climbed onto the back of his motorcycle and there he stood, showing scars on his body, for all to behold.

He told the rowdy crowd to follow him because he wanted to put on a show of strength for you-know-who. That call was immediately answered by the euphoric crowd. They roared. They howled. They revved up motorcycle engine as they got into formation. Something like 100 native guys and girls on the back of about 50 motorcycles made a noisy parade in the streets of Lung Dara that night. Everywhere they roamed they chanted KKK! Kayan Kenyah Kelabit. No Chinese could be seen in the streets that night.

But his influence on the younger population of Lung Dara had invited another unpleasant issue. The KKK parents were upset. They feared for the wellbeing of their children.

If Jack Lawai had thought he was indestructible they were ready to believe him. But their children were not immortal, they could die, or they could go to prison. All for what – for something as stupid as native girls are only for native boys?

Jack Lawai Factor was getting too much for the older KKK to tolerate. Their sons had picked up habit of smoking cigarettes lately. What with fake Zippo lighters in jeans pocket everywhere they went. They also loved to party and quarrel with others. No doubt they were past schooling age, some were already working, but since they still lived in the parent’s home they still had to go by their father’s rules, and start going to Sunday church again because their parents told them to.

Lung Dara mothers loathed Jack as well, especially since he habitually whisked their daughters away in the middle of the night. The polyclinic where he was regularly treated for injuries was also infuriated. Their young nurse had often come late to work lately!

No doubt the natives in Lung Dara had reasons to dislike the Chinese among them. Their reasons were probably more valid than that of Jack Lawai’s. But these Kayan, Kenyah and Kelabit folks also saw to the virtue of discretion. Having known for their forbearing nature and tolerance they refrained from impropriety even against the antagonists. Not only because they were Christians that they were able to conduct themselves in such manner. It was rooted in their traditional upbringing that public opinion of them was a matter of great consideration, hence the restraints.

English travellers in the 19^th Century had noted that although the Kayans and Kenyahs did not have jailhouse the law and order in the longhouse society were conscientiously observed nevertheless. The Kayans in particular had a common social rule which they called ‘emtekep’. Matters that were forthrightly wrongful such as theft and murder fell under the jurisdiction of the penghulu and village elders to deal in these areas. Emtekep referred to impropriety. Quarrelsomeness, drunkenness and immorality fell under emtekep. Public opinion took care of these. Repeat offenders shouldered the weight of what the public had thought of him, and what the public opinion made of him had easily outcast him from among their midst.

A bravado that led to the disruption of peace in public was also emtekep.

No doubt the old tradition of the Kayan and the Kenyah had been forsaken in modern days yet the relevance of public opinion in their community had survived the change nevertheless. Perhaps, this relevance had been made broader in the modern context of their society, considering many Christian values having been introduced into the glossary of emtekep.

Jack Lawai was great offender of emtekep, distaste in Public Opinion.

But, of course, he was a rebel, and he was able to speak for himself. His opinion superseded the authority of public opinion. In his opinion he was only a lesser evil. The bigger culprits were the Chinese. He did not believe the public opinion could have any effect on some creatures that had sailed over from mainland China. They were different animal. When they misbehaved he must spank them. But who must spank Jack Lawai when he misbehaved.

When Lung Dara could not talk to him they talked to his father.

The reverend himself had beginning to lose sleep. The college had been asking why his son had failed to enrol in their Form Six class in the previous year. He was already few months behind for 1990’s intake but they could make an exception, considering his achievement in sports.

Jack had protested, saying he was still waiting for replies from several universities.

But Reverend David Lawai figured his son had had too long a vacation. He asked him to pack, catch the earliest boat in the morning, told him never to return to Lung Dara. No explanation was given to the outcast.

* * *

She picks up a shell to investigate in the moonlight, turns it over and feeling it with her finger. Convinced, she dusts it and put the little shell into her jeans pocket. Her bare foot is squirming in the soft wet sand, searching for another treasure in the water. Jack Lawai has returned from a short journey to a trash bin nearby. The empty Carlsberg needed a new home.

“Do you want to know what people said about you... after you’re gone?” She has asked as they continue the journey.

The man enjoys his cigarette.

She repeats the question.

“I know. They said they’re so scared of me they become pious in a sudden.”

She kicks at the water with her bare foot. The splash wetted the man’s jeans. He growls. She giggles. He pushes at her shoulder with one hand. She pushes him back with two hands. He tries to grab her. She runs. She waits up at some distance ahead. They speak the same language because both of them are Kayans from Baram valleys. The medium of interaction, however, is not restricted to Kayan dialect. Being multi-lingual they also communicate well in English and Malays, wherever it suits them in the conversation.

“They said Jack Lawai is a rebel, rebelling against everything that is good.” She studies his reaction. The rebel seemed receptive and approachable.

“Define GOOD.” He asks.

“Good is when you can listen to people.”

“But they’re bad people.”

“I mean your father.”

“He’s bad.”

She has not expected that, although she should know he has always been very frank.

That is how he has always been with her – raw and candid. When she recalls those days lately, gosh, she was embarrassed. She was probably only an overly curious little girl to him. Rightly so she was. Jack Lawai on the other hand was a strange phenomenon in a sleepy town. Not that she was interested with his street fighting activities. Many other things about this man had bewitched her and everyone else around him. For one, he did not act or think like boys his age.

She was sort of Jack’s little secretary back then in Lung Dara, mentally dictating his speech while he was speaking. She was very nosey. It was hard for her not to ask questions. Whenever she had the opportunity she had quickly kept to his side although often she could tell he did not want her there. He called her Little Fanny back then.

But she is a big girl now. She is no longer the same little girl he could simply leave in the middle of the road. She had her pride. He had better learn that quickly.

“Can you stop being a rebel?” She starts being nosey again, for old time’s sake.

“Not until the world has wise up to their own foolishness.” He walks ahead.

“You’re not a fool yourself?” She follows.

“I’m the one who can think straight.”

“The one who can think straight is also the one who carries a pocketknife.”

“Carrying a knife is not the same as using it.”

“So what’s your knife for?” She walks ahead.

“To kill a wild boar in case one crosses my way.” He follows.

“Do you enjoy being a rebel who carries a pocketknife?”

“Well at least I can have my liberty.”

“You’re already a free man, are you not?”

“I want more. Freedom of choice, I chose to be different.”

“You also need a correct attitude for that.”

“What about my attitude?” He stops walking.

“You know it don’t you?” She stops walking.

“I was too honest, I know. You like my attitude, YES?”

“Y—NO!” She says, trying to ignore the slipup. He laughs.

“Was I that bad?” He walks ahead.

“Yes, you were.” She follows.

“Do you think I was in the wrong?”

“Yes.”

“All the time?”

“No.”

“When was it it’s not my wrong?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You can remember all my wrongs,” he stops walking, turns to face her “but couldn’t remember when it’s not my fault. Thanks for the sarcasm.”

“Why not you tell me – when was it you’re not wrong?” She walks on.

“I don’t remember.” He says innocently. She laughs.

“Oh you’re funny, Jack. Try this. Do you think you’re bad?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Do you think you’re in the wrong?”

“I think so.”

“All the time?”

“No,” he says quickly. “I know they deserved it.”

“Okay... so, when it was your wrong is justified?”

“Remember Tamar Telun?” He says as he stops walking.

She remembers. Tamar Telun is a sweet teenager from Lung Bedian. In 1989, the Kayan girl made friend with AhLeong, a Chinese teenage boy from Lung Dara bazaar. People said AhLeong was a good boy. Everybody loved AhLeong. One night, he spiked her drink; Tamar fell asleep. The following morning she reported the date-rape incident to her mother who in turn reported it to the police.

But AhLeong’s parents had quickly persuaded her parents not to involve the police, although the policemen were already with them during the meeting at her home. AhLeong’s parents said a fine in cash should cover. Some elders from the bazaar were also with them that night. They had suggested the same. They said news about the rape would only do more shame than good to Tamar Telun. It was eventually agreed the matter was swept under the carpet. Jack Lawai took the law into his own hand. Brutalised and with one arm broken, AhLeong had fled the town, too afraid to return.

“AhLeong has returned to Lung Dara, Jack.”

“Are you telling me this so I go kick his arse again?” He says. She laughs and says, “He’s a good man now. He married Tamar Telun two years ago.”

“I know.” He walks on. She follows.

“You see, Jack, there’s always a happy ending somewhere. You’ve got to have some patience, okay.”

“Tamar Telun is only his second wife. Happy ending?”

“That’s still a better ending than your – what you’ve called that – kicking arse.”

“I’m sure you remember Emily Lenjau?”

“I know that name but I don’t remember her as fondly as you do.”

“Oh, she’s the prettiest Kenyah girl I’ve ever seen.” She hates his observation. Emily Lenjau from Lio Mato was Jack’s one-time girlfriend. They were neighbours. That is all she remembers, or wants to remember about that Emily, other than she is unquestionably very pretty, what with wavy hair, fair complexion and Eurasian look. Save that she’s short. Tamar Telun was also Jack’s one-time girlfriend, after AhLeong.

Jack says four guys from Lung Meludi went to look for Emily at her home one night. They had invited her out. She declined. She had been avoiding them all evening at a coffeshop where she worked. Undeterred, they told her parents to release her to them so they could have some fun with her. They offered some amount of money to her father. The old man sent his little boy to look for him next door. He went over to Emily’s home. The four men left Lung Dara the following morning. One of them had both of his hands broken.

“That’s not what I heard, Jack.” She stops in her stride.

“I know. They said I acted out of jealousy.” He walks on.

“I mean nobody said about the money or her father had called you over.”

“Everyone was ready to believe I was an outlaw.” He punches her playfully on the shoulder as they walk on. “One boy can break a glass, said Jack Lawai made him do it, and everyone will be ready to believe him. When you have someone like me in town, Fanny, everyone else around me can easily claim innocent.”

“You didn’t help yourself either, did you?” she counters with a smile. He nods. Jokingly, he seizes her slender neck in his strong hands, threatening to strangle her. She welcomes the rough play.

“I’m sure you know what have become of Emily and her sister after Lung Dara.”

“I know. They come from poor family, Fanny, lack of education as well.”

“So how has that justified your punishing the men?”

He stops walking, grabs her arm as he looks at her sternly. “At that particular time in Lung Dara they’re not prostitutes. Get it?” Her head voluntarily nods.

“Lirang was also your ex-girlfriend, I presume?”

“Nope!”

“Then why the... RAMPAGE... at the Chinese cemetery had involved you?”

“I guess I was bored that day.”

“Nonsense.”

“You know the story.”

“I know you nearly buried several men in their graves that night,” she says as she stops walking. Lirang was a Penan girl from Upper Baram. She worked as housemaid for a Kayan family in Lung Dara. All too sudden she had returned to her village in Lung Likan. Nothing was heard from the girl ever since. “What’s your side of the story?”

He walks on. She follows. He tells her. “One morning, seven men talked her to follow them to the Chinese cemetery.” He burns a cigarette, inhales deeply before he continues. “They forced themselves on her in a small hut. They tied her up. They called their friends over. They took turn on her. This had gone on until the night. But I guess that’s not how the story being told afterward.”

“I didn’t know it was as bad as that. Oh poor girl. How could they do such thing to her?! Animal!” She shakes her head repeatedly.

He continues. “She had wanted to stay in Lung Dara regardless, said that was not the first time she was assaulted, this time it had gotten worst.” She gasps, still shaking her head. He says, “I told her to go home to her parents. Was that a right thing or not, I didn’t know. So I took money from the men, all I could find in their wallets, and gave it all to her.”

She quickly decides. “You did the right thing.”

“I broke people’s faces at the cemetery. Was that a right thing?”

“I mean your telling her to go home. That’s the right thing. As you said, that’s not the first time it had happened to her. Rescuing her is also the right thing.”

“What about the punishing? What would you do if you’re Jack Lawai?”

“I’m not going to answer that. No, you don’t put that question to me.”

“It didn’t work that way anymore huh,” he says as he nudges her.

“No, it doesn’t. I’m a big girl already... I know all your tricks... I hope.”

“Very well, in the absence of denial from Big Girl Fanny I safely concluded I did the right thing,” he says with chuckles.

“Why didn’t you report it to the police? That’s the right thing to do.”

“You know I don’t have faith in the Lung Dara police.”

Jack goes into some narrative. He says rape or equivalent of rape is a new thing to the Penans, not to mention bondage rape or rape drugs. They do not have a Penan word for rape. The Kayans, too, do not have word for rape. They only know such offense is emtekep.

This vacuum in their vocabulary is quite a big irony about the Kayans. They can rightfully boast about Kayan language is rich, that they can name nearly everything from a woman’s head down to her toes. They also have nouns for every type of facial expression and emotions, or what to call a man whose wife has passed away. What to call the father if his firstborn is a girl, what to call him if it’s a boy. What to call a mother after one of her children has died, which child.

They have many adjectives and synonyms as well as idioms. They can turn the words play into hymns. Their syntax does not have past and present tense but they do have singular and plural nouns. They also have possessive pronouns. They can name just about any plants in the forest, or any fish in the river or any types of animal as well as the inside parts of the animal. They can practically name everything. But they do not have a specific verb or noun for rape.

Why is that?

He found them a nice dry log to sit on. The big log is half buried in the sand. It is almost a bench, about knee high and is long. Very nice! She wonders if he has known since last year that the night will be as beautiful as tonight. He put this log here.

Jack excuses himself, says he needed to get stuff from the car. Mineral water as well, she reminds him. They are only about 50 metres now from the big Toyota. The car is standing like a sturdy bull on the white sands. Jack says it will be a quick one, run to and fro. But in case some monster intends to be funny with her she can sell his name. Tell the monster she is Jack’s wife, the monster will tug tail. She smiles, pats him in the back of his thigh as he starts for the car.

They have been exploring the Bakam beach for about an hour. How long really is the shoreline? She still could not tell. In the distance she sees a cliff. She figures the sands stop there, at the foot of Tanjong Lobang cliff. She estimates is a quarter to one. They would head home, soon. For some reason she hopes it is not that soon.

The breeze is now blowing from the sea, brushing against her face, gently caressing her skin. In front of her is the South China Sea. The waves lap gently against the shore, beckoning her over. But she is not in the mood for a swim. The night is bright, very bright. Skin tanning in the moonlit is the better idea, and that is what she is doing now, except that she has not stepped out of her dress. She will not. Jack’s wife? Crazy. She is not drawn amorously to the man with captivating eye. She cannot have feelings for this man. The frog and the fly are cousins, she has reminded herself.

But, she also needed to remind herself that there is always some magic between Aries and Pisces, like fire and water, complementary, especially when the Piscean is a he, and especially when they are now near body of water, the sea that is – the domain of the Pisceans. She has to be careful. If she goes by the Chinese zodiac he is a Metal Pig, strong, assertive, and passionate. That is another reason she has to be careful – she is a Rabbit. No doubt the compatibility of the signs, Chinese and Western, is all pointing in one direction but on the other hand...

Men can wait; her dream career is first and foremost. Thought of marriage is only like vinegar on her sister’s shopping list – the last. Malaysia’s air stewardesses, she has heard, are not allowed to have children in the first five years of service. That could also mean she can have husband but no children. That is as weird as having a marriage but no husband. So forget it!

The man, whoever may be the prince charming destined to walk the aisle with her will have to wait until the Boeing can unlock her womb. The wedding bells can go rusty from waiting too long. So be it.

Soon, she will view this sea shore and many other coasts from the clouds. She felt in love with a career in the sky at age 10. She was watching TV when suddenly there on the screen appeared the most gorgeous creature she had ever seen, smiling and waving to her. That woman in neat uniform got to fly in airplanes everyday, seeing new places everyday. She knew it since then what she wanted to be when she grew up. She has never departed from that dream.

Four years later when she met Jack she told him about it. He laughed in her face, saying she is not pretty to become air stewardess. She remembered she had kicked him hard in the leg as tears welled up in her eyes. The following day he tried to make up to her. He brought with him a magazine with a lot of photos of airports, planes and airlines girls in pretty uniforms. He told her to keep it, said she probably want to inject herself with some inspiration while pursuing her dream. It’s a glamour job, he had said, he would be proud of her. She complained the magazine was written in English. She remembers what he said to her that day. “That will be your first hurdle. English is the language everywhere, Fanny, get on with it. You must speak English before the sky can welcome you.”

She did a lot of reading ever since. Along the course of learning her command of English had gradually improved. He had also advised her to do one other thing – don’t read Malays subtitle while watching English programme on TV; watch people talk. She did that since then. Using a masking tape she had blanked out the bottom section of the TV screen where the subtitles should appear. The other kids in the house had protested, as the masking tape was a distraction. She told them their favourite Uncle Jack made her do it. No more protest.

Whenever she was with him she had insisted he spoke to her in English. Courageously she responded in broken English; he corrected her sentence. By now the sky should be ready to welcome her.

She would correct Jack later – and she’s sure he’d agree – that although good look is important for the job the airline is not looking for supermodels, and she isn’t that bad looking after all. They want girls who can project a graceful image in the uniform. The Boeing girls represent not only the airlines but also their country. They are, in that sense, ambassadors.

“Found any monster?” Jack teases, in English, as soon as he is by her side carrying a plastic bag containing some drinks. He hands her a plastic bottle of mineral water. Without a word she quickly took it, twisted the lid to open and greedily drinks from it. Her thirst quenched she handed it back to him who also drinks from it. She remembers something. She blushes.

“Yes, found one.” She has replied in English. “That monster is drinking my water.”

“Yep,” says he with a grin, “he’s enjoying it very much.” She screeches a little, knowing what the monster has implied. Her lipstick’s on the bottle’s mouth as well as her saliva.

“Jack, oh, Jack, you’re a funny monster, always.”

“So are you, when you hide something from me. So, tell me, who’s the lucky guy?” She kicks at his leg.

“Tell me, Jack, what have you done to the policemen?”

“Ah, I smell a desperate attempt to change the subject.”

“YOU changed the subject. I asked first.”

“Is it?”

“Yes! Then the monster ran to the car before coming back to bribe me.” She says with straight face. “Please continue from where you left off.” He says he likes her wittiness. He helps himself to a nice spot beside her, on her right. He begins his recollection.

When he was 20 years old he was having a walk in Miri town that night with a friend and three girls when a team of policemen had stopped them for a random inspection. Sometime later they had had a little argument with the policemen. One of the cops flashed his police ID. He was their leader by rank of chief inspector. He told them he can take them to the central police station and detain them in lock up cells if they refused to cooperate with the police. Jack Lawai didn’t like getting intimidated. He instead told the police inspector to go ahead with his intention. He spread out five fingers to make his point and said five minutes later his father would surely come to take him and his friends out of the police lock up. The policeman asked if his father was somebody in the government. Jack did not answer him. He instead kept on daring him to take them to the police station, if the policeman believed he can square up with his father afterward. The standoff between the police and a civilian continued for another five minutes. In the end the police had to let them go without anymore questions. Jack knew his father was not in Miri at that time; even if he was around he would not do what Jack had said he could do. It was a gamble on Jack’s part. The policeman took the bluff.

“It’s not funny, Jack, really, it’s not funny.”

“I know,” he has said without regret. “It’s your turn to tell me your secret.”

“But you haven’t told me your story.”

“I just did.”

“No, you told me a different police story.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me about the one in Lung Dara.” The small town went buzzing that afternoon with gossip about Jack Lawai had attacked their police station. Folks said he overturned tables, broke windowpanes and pelted the cops with stone. “What’s your side of the story, Jack?”

Reverend David Lawai and his son Jack went to lodge a report with the Lung Dara police that day. It was over some damage done to their properties when a long raft of logs towed downriver by a tugboat had grazed their side of the riverbank. The raft pulled along with it their small sampan, fishing net and a floating toilet.

Yet for reasons only known to the two policemen they refused to record the report lodged by the reverend. Jack watched from the sideline as his father struggled to reason with a police sergeant. It was to no avail. Appalled by their attitude, the reverend said he will report them to their superior in Lung Meludi. He said they were acting as if they were taking side with the tugboat. The policeman was clearly offended by the allegation. The sergeant slammed the table. He stood up. While pointing a finger at the reverend he asked if he was accusing them to be on the take. The reverend rested his case, was about to leave the place when his son took over.

Jack Lawai started by telling the sergeant that the least the police could have done was writing the report down. His father did not ask them to make any arrest. He only wanted the report he lodged to be recorded at the police station. But why had they refused to do a simple clerical task?

The sergeant did not answer him. He asked again. Again, silence.

Jack Lawai had had enough. He walked to the sergeant and slammed the desk. His father had tried to restrain him but to no avail. “You!” Jack pointed to the police sergeant, as two other policemen were disappearing into other room. “Meet me outside. Now!”

By the time he walked out of the door he found a small crowd had gathered in the compound. Jack picked his spot in front of the blue-and-white single-storey police building. He called out the police sergeant. Over and over he called his name. Ten minutes had passed without any answer from any one of the policemen. They instead closed the door and locked it from the inside. Jack did not break window panes or overturned tables as rumoured. He picked up a sizeable brick and threw it to the building. It punched a hole in the door. He went home with his father without accomplishing anything decent.

Jack finishes his recollection.

She is ready to be on her relative’s side. She has heard of a number of complaints made by residents against tugboats towing rafts of logs in Lung Dara. The operators conducted the job irresponsibly, or were simply too lazy to monitor things in the water. The Lung Dara cops were sometime bent.

But Jack’s show of protest was a little too extreme. Who says Jack had protested? He came with his finishing. He punished. She remembers telling him the trouble could not have happened if he had not started it. He of course said they started it, he finished it. Just that his finishing was too dramatic that people had overlooked the actual cause leading to that dramatic ending. People did not see what the others had done to him; they see only what he did to the others.

“Why do you have to break people’s hand, Jack?”

“You tell me.”

“Is that your signature finishing? You want to leave your signature there – Jack the Hand was here!” She laughs. She taps him in the knee. “You’re one hell of a brute, Jack. Before you get the wrong idea, no, that’s no complimentary. You know it’s wrong to do that, right?”

“I know. Guilty as charged. Break the hand or take the life. What’s your choice?”

“Aha, you’re trying that trick again, aren’t you?” She beats at his leg. “Kiss-and-make-up would be a better choice.”

“With you? Sure.”

YUCK! She says with a grimace in her face. He has to laugh.

She feels sorry for him. He is the victim of rumour mongering. It will probably take years to reverse the rumours, or a lifetime. Until then, in the absence of denial from him the false story rings true. Making matters worse he seemed to enjoy the bad publicity.

Over the years no one can tell already what had actually happened during the incident in SRK Daleh Kayan in early 1990. As the story was passed on from one mouth to the next, thanks to creative fabrication many factual details had been lost. In its place were lies or additional information that had successfully blown it out of proportion. Many other stories about Jack Lawai in Lung Dara had also suffered similar makeover. In the end Jack Lawai had become a superhero, or rather super villain.

They said his reflect action responded faster than the swing of a hand, the stroke of a blade or the flight of a dart because all movements around him had appeared to him in slow motion. Where there’s rumour there’s personal suggestion, which is more of a hypothesis really. These theories then fed into a new circle of rumours. They said a blade can gash his skin but it cannot penetrate his body, hence the scars. They said he can make his body lighter, hence the many gold medals he won in sprint events in school.

She suspects it is only a matter of time before someone says he can fly. She has heard they said he could overturn a car when he’s angry, quite like Incredible Hulk. Another rumour said when he’s angry he can fight with Chuck Norris. They also said Jack had likened himself with nazirite Samson of the Old Testament. More nonsense.

A few elderly men in Upper Baram also joined the rumour mongering recently. They had some guesswork of their own as to explain why Jack Lawai is not dead yet – he’s a Lakin!

A man could summon a mysterious energy from within himself to aid him in times of need, said the old men, but very few people knew how to do it. This phenomenon in a man could shut off his sense of fear, as well as a few other senses that might have otherwise limited his physical ability and tenacity. He went into a trance state. While under trance he experience neither pain nor tiredness. At the same time his bodily strength was increased.

The ability to ignite this mysterious energy is nearly an impossible skill, it could not be acquired through training; it is almost a gift. In the ancient Sarawak, a number of men had been known to have in possession of such gift. They were found among the LAKINS during the headhunting days. Man of this ability jumped higher, run faster, or lifted a load which normally took several men to carry. He could swing his sword for hours in battle without slowing down. He could also walk across a bed of burning wood without getting burnt.

Jack Lawai had probably tapped into some skills necessary for the acquisition of this mysterious energy, that he could summon this energy when he needed it and shut it off afterward. It was a wonder he had learnt it while he was still young. Where was the source of this energy? They said it involved total concentration of the mind or one’s emotion such as panic, love, hatred, anger, desire, obsession, or revenge, among known sources. The overflow of this emotion easily produced the energy. In Jack Lawai’s case it was probably his anger. But anger was not a reliable source because the reason for the anger could easily be made pacified. The anger in Jack Lawai had not subsided after many years. Then it must have been revenge.

He cannot die until he gets his revenge.

She remembers back then in Lung Dara having overheard him and his friend talking. He mentioned something about Faith and that if a man can have faith in himself in the amount of even as little as a fish eye he can tell the Baram River to turn, and the river will turn upside down. The friend had taken some time pondering upon that scenario before he laughed very loudly; so had she.

“Have you killed anyone, Jack?” she asks bravely. Interrogating Jack Lejau Lawai was something only Little Fanny could do back then. She supposes Jack the Hand was weak under Little Fanny’s spell. But not always she had enjoyed the interrogation. Jack Lawai was also a cunning fox. He turned the table on her. She ended up being interrogated instead. One time she had gone away crying.

Her subject of interrogation now confesses. “I don’t kill people.”

“Truthfully?”

“I swear,” he says with honesty.

“The five rules you told me about. Do you still keep them?”

“I cannot remember already,” he says rather seriously, but she knows he has uttered that with a feign ignorance. In case he needed reminding here she is reciting them. “Don’t kill people. Don’t rape women. Don’t take drugs. Don’t sleep with prostitutes. And,” she pauses a while, hesitating, embarrassed. Rule Number Five was actually a long sentence; she summarizes it. “Don’t defile... virgin girls.”

The rules are in English. He told her that only once, six years ago, but there were reasons she remembers them. They were arranged in that order. She resumes the interrogation. “Have you broken any one of those five?”

He is quiet now. She is not giving up. “Have you?”

She realizes he is studying her face now, probably thinking she is not fit to hear his next confession. Aha, he has something there. She leans closer to return his gaze, assuring him she can be trusted. “Perhaps I need to remind you I’m not a little girl anymore. When I was a little girl you told me many things anyway. I can hear anything from you, Jack. Yes, I can.”

“It was different back then, Fanny.”

“How is that?”

“I thought you’d never grow up.”

“A weak excuse I’ve heard from a Jack Lawai in years,” she says as she laughs. He laughs louder. She snaps out of the hilarity to resume her interrogation. “I have you know there’s no creativity in that. You can do better than that. Speak! Have you done it?”

“Narrow escape.”

“Which one?”

That question irritates him. “Look, what’s important for you to know is I don’t take people’s life, okay. I’ll keep that rule for as long as I can. Okay?”

She is not letting him go easily. “What about drugs?”

“I don’t do drugs!” he says, annoyed. “Friends offered me some but I said no. I don’t even sell drugs. That’s the good thing about being a rebel like me, isn’t it? No one can tell me to do anything. But I guess you’re only interested with my other rules. No, I’ve not raped any girl and will not do such thing to them.”

“What about prostitutes?”

“Hey, what about your many, many rules?! Last I checked you’ve got only one left.”

“Jack, you haven’t answered my question.”

“What about the thing you told me after I’ve found you in the nude.”

“Jack, you’re making things up!”

“You said you’ll stay virgin until your wedding day.”

“I didn’t say such thing. You didn’t see me in the nude. Ever! ”

“So who’s the lucky bastard?”

“Jack, keep it with you ok. We’re talking about you here.”

“You do have a pet called boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Jack, don’t go there.”

“Many nights of cuddling and kissing under a lemon tree don’t tell me he hasn’t gotten lucky so far.”

“Jack Lejau Lawai, I’m warning you!” She has raised her voice. When she utters his name in full it goes to show she is serious. He is serious, too. He says, “You don’t ask anymore about my Rules. I don’t report you to your mother.”

“OKAY, fine! They’re stupid rules anyway!” She picks up a pebble, or was it a junk, and cast it away while saying, “As stupid as the man who made those rules.” She turns to him. She snatches at the cigarette in his mouth, throws it to the sand, stomps on it a couple of times. “Why don’t you make No-Smoking as your rule instead?”

She hears a chuckle from him. He shakes his head.

She tells him, “We already have a set of rules in life, in case you’ve forgotten – the Ten Commandments!” She has said that with a certain conviction although she cannot safely say she knows all the details in the Ten Commandments. Murder is number six on the list. But of course she can expect to hear him saying he needed to remind himself for the second time. She thinks she knows this devious man quite well by now she does not like it when he dissects properties in the Holy Bible to make his point. Watch out, he’s very good at that, a maestro, a hair-raising devil so to speak.

Why can’t he keep to the other Commandment, number five on the list, about obedience to parents instead if truly he wants to save himself? That would have spared him a lot of troubles, wouldn’t it?

He has an answer for her. “I know. Can I just add my five to the first ten?”

“Gosh! Why can’t you just follow the rules like everyone else? You’re only making things complicated for yourself, Jack!”

He has an answer for that as well. “Your Ten Commandments are not complete.”

“What do you mean?”

“No drugs, no rapes, no prostitutes, no virgins.”

“Not drugs of course, thousands of years ago, what do you expect, but teachings in the Holy Bible did mention—”

“That beside the point I’ve pointed out,” he says. “If you’d read King James Bible you’ll be surprised to find there’s no word RAPE in the entire book.”

She now remembers something in the Book of Corinthians. “It’s been written our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s how the restriction on drugs has been properly necessitated.”

“Says the Christian leaders who commit their belief to teachings in New Testament, but I’m talking about the Old Testament here.”

She knows he is in his elements now. He can give her his elaborative thesis about how the New Testament has been corrupted. She will not like it. She instead says, “Do you always have the need to find arguments in the Holy Bible?”

“Nope! I try to find the Chinese in the Bible but I couldn’t find any.” He laughs loudly at his own mockery. Fanny is not amused. The Kayans, too, could not be found in the Bible. That was funny alright. But Jack-Lihai and his anti-Chinese sentiment is never a funny thing.

“Jack, please, stop making fun of the Chinese. You know why.”

He looks away. He knows what she meant.

“Without the Chinese issues as spoiler you’re one likeable person, do you know that? There are many things in you that are good. Believe me. If only you could show us more of that and little of the unpleasant side of you,” she says sincerely. “You’re kind, funny, fascinating, very polite and respectful when you want to. I like that. You’re clever, everyone knows that. You’re different from other guys we’ve seen. You don’t have to – what you called that again – kick arse all the time to make yourself interesting to us.”

“By US, who exactly do you mean?”

“Try GIRLS for example.”

“Don’t forget I got into trouble with AhBeng because of you.”

“Because of me? I thought I told you to leave him alone.”

“You know my Baram rules.”

“Baram rules?” She scoffs. “Which one – native girls are only for native boys? But I’m not exactly native, have you forgotten?”

“You know, back then in Lung Dara I knew I cannot beat the Chinese.”

Oh, he is changing the subject, isn’t he? She hears him again. “Most of the times I’ve got only myself to face a crowd of them. They’re very well organised. They looked after one another, when they moved they moved in pack like a family of hyenas.” He is speaking in English. She wonders if his use of the word ‘hyenas’, instead of wolves, was deliberate. She dislikes hyenas as much as he.

“I admit I was afraid of them. But I also have reasons to be angry with them. When I was angry I forgot to be afraid.” He pauses awhile to amuse himself with a sarcastic laughter. “So I thought maybe I was too harsh on them, maybe they’re not so bad, maybe there’s another way to solve the problems, so why not I make nice and accept their friendship and see how it goes from there. Well, I was willing to do that. But they must invite me nicely. They first must come to see me about it.”

“That’s the issue with you, isn’t it?” She has retorted sharply. “Why must they first, why not you first who initiate it?”

“Why should I first?”

“Try boy’s rationale. Because that’s their town... you entered their territory.”

“Is that how you girls settle issues among boys? I thought you knew me well. I was born there. I grew up elsewhere but, still, that’s my town!”

“My apology, Jack, I truly am sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He sniggers. “I almost forgot it myself.” She hates that sarcasm, particularly because it really has helped his case, and because it has steered them away from his weaker case. She needed to remind herself he was a chess champion in school. He loves to castle when he’s in a difficult position, that’s equivalent of changing subject of conversation.

He has created his own opening when he played white – pawn to C3, queen to C2. Three moves later bishop moved to D3; the sharp arrow of queen-bishop aimed diagonally at a corner where the opponent had castled or likely to castle. When he played black he instead went on offensive. He castled to his right instead and blocked all passages in that corner with his pawns and opponent’s pawns. His two rooks and queen in the left corner posed threats to the opponent’s king across. Next, he traded his black bishop with a white pawn in G or H section of the board. By then the white was forced to abort the attacking formation; white pieces rushed to the king’s defence.

She knows this because she had learnt chess play from him. None of his friends in Lung Dara, including his brother, knew a thing about chess. So he had trained her. She bored him easily with many errors and takebacks. He had to like it because he did not have any other opponents. Over the years she has figured a way to beat the C3 Saragossa-Lawai opening. She can give him a rematch now!

“Fine, it’s your town. But you can share the town with them, can’t you?” She tries another move, en passant. “We can live peacefully with them. My sister can, I can. The Kayan Kenyah can.”

“That’s the issue. We don’t live among them they live among us. Yet they acted as if we park our asses in their territory.”

“Nah, I seriously think the real issue here is you hate them enough you don’t want to give peace a chance.” She is very sure of that. He is in check position now.

“Peace is only an ideal, little girl. You must see beyond that ideal and compare it with everyday reality in the streets. Peace to the Chinese only mean free ride while it lasts. Peace is only an excuse, something to fall back to in case they cannot have the free ride forever. When the natives finally give them a kick in the arse they quickly say hello goody two-shoes Fanny why not we give peace a chance.”

“I don’t know how to talk sense into you, Jack!” She quits.

“Then don’t.”

“You’re pain in your own... arse!”

“I know.”

They stop talking. She stands up. Something in front of her has caught her attention. She goes to check the imaginary something in the sand. The truth is she does not want to sit anywhere near him. He is a mean rascal when he wanted to become one.

The questions she had earlier return to haunt her.

Why is she here with him tonight? Nevermind that question; it’s a long story. Now that she is already here the next question is why is she in this kind of conversation with him? Again, she found it quite a challenge to answer. They definitely can talk about other things. It is only a matter of want, not can.

If they had wanted it they can talk about things like music – the current sensation Amy Search or Man Bai –, or some movies or exciting places for holidays, or anything that don’t require too much brain in the conversation. Or she could tell him about her bright future, if he wants to hear it. It would interest him if she tells him he’ll get a postcard from every town she is visiting. That’s the kind of stuff talked between young people like them, isn’t it? Or talk about Fanny, the girl many local men said almost a duplicate copy of Erra Fazira – or a cross between Brooke Shields and Liv Tyler!

Right, she cannot blame him when they don’t talk about Fanny Wong-Anyie, because each time he had wanted to talk about her she had instead asked him to keep their talk with him. But he should have intruded. She is waiting. She is willing to tell him about herself if only he had pressed on.

But Jack is only interested with his life, isn’t he.

Or the better the reason is because she is interested with his life.

His life story is also her life story. They have a common ground to start from. Their stories are about Lung Dara, a place where she grew up and where she had had the best of years in her teens. She knew people he knew. She can relate to many things in his story. It’s about their history, story about them, how they grew up and what become of them now. In that story she was very much involved with his life. They are cousins. But they were also good buddies. He was a gang leader; she was his little secretary!

Her personal life in those early years was pretty much the same thing every day – wake up, go to school and back to home. So she left her story at home and she had entered his story. Bang! She saw herself in some adventure. Nevermind the brawling, she wasn’t thinking of that and she wasn’t part of that, save on one occasion when she was the reason for it. But to be with him and his friends – the boys were funny, the girls were chatty – had always given her something to smile about afterward. So of course she had kept to his heel for as long as she could before nightfall beckoned her home.

It is their story. Jack and Fanny are in that story. But between them this story can be told better from his angle, because her story’s better angle leans on his. It is hard to put it behind when a girl had been watching a leading man for too long. His influence had nearly turned her into some tomboy, had it not? What with her interest in chess, gang, bikes, boy’s lingo, and jeans. If he had stayed for another three years in Lung Dara she is probably a short-haired female tonight. On the bright side of his influence on her self-belief it had also made her to act like a lady and think like a man – stick to her guns!

But tonight is the last page in their story.

She wanted him to see she has departed from his story. She is creating her own story. She also wants him to make some correction in his story – the Chinese chapter.

She figures she answered her own questions. If he had talked about things like music or some movies or exciting destinations for holidays she would definitely have stopped him.

She hates him.

She likes him.

She walks back to him.

She tries again. “Without the Lung Dara Chinese our land will remain poor and primitive. They brought many good things to our people, Jack. They give us jobs, means of transportation, improve our standard of living. They teach us how to do business, too. They’re not all-bad you see. Think a little better of them. A few among them are bad but it is not race Chinese that has made them bad. It is – what you’ve told me – human sins. The Kayan Kenyah, too, can do the same bad things the Chinese can do.”

He instead gives her a look of disappointment. He shakes his head repeatedly. “The Chinese are not necessarily the only outsiders who can feed Baram with all those things you just mentioned. What a biased assumption. The Englishmen and the Malays can also do the same thing. Maybe they can do a better job than the Chinese.”

“And they can also do more evils than the Chinese!”

Jack is caught unprepared by that counter response. The Englishmen had brought many modern machines and utensils with them. They also brought along books, gun powder and Christianity. The way of life in traditional Sarawak has since then rehabilitated to adapt to or accommodate the foreign elements.

The Malays chased the Englishmen out. During their reign they changed the political landscape in Sarawak so much so that today the Malays have tighten their grips on nearly all factors necessary for formation of a Malay-biased government. If the Malays had had their way all the Kayans and Kenyahs would have become Muslims. The Englishmen and the Malays took land and women from the natives. The Chinese were merely copying what the other two foreigners had done. Yet the Chinese had refrained from copying one other thing the first two had done. They had not forced their religions unto the natives.

“I’m sure you can like them if you want to give it a try, Jack.” She places her hand on his left shoulder. He still has his face towards the sea but she knows he is paying attention. “My Chinese classmate, YingYing, I’m sure you remember her. She’s pretty, isn’t she? She often asked about you. She was sad that day when we learnt about you’re no longer in Lung Dara.”

She can feel in his shoulder he is slightly surprised. “She liked you, did you know that? You didn’t know that because you don’t want to know stuff like that. You don’t even try. You shut it off completely. You only know what you want to know. What you want to know is they’re bad, bad, bad. So you think its okay for you to be bad to them because they’re bad everywhere.”

“YingYing is half Chinese-half native, Fanny. It’s the native side of her who likes me.”

“Now that is very funny, you’re very clever when it comes to making excuses.” She tries to find his face but he has it turned the other way. “Jack, please, listen to me. Look at me. Some of the men you fought with were also half Chinese-half native. Yes, you know that. So who had you fought with – the Chinese or the natives?”

He turns to her indignantly. “Good! That should have made it very easy for them to choose. If they knew they’re only natives, just like me, for goodness sake they’d better stopped behaving like some gangster from Hong Kong!”

“It’s YOU who’d behaved like some gangster from Hong Kong, Jack!”

“Fight fire with fire, tit for tat, blow for blow, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! Did they like it?! Did they like it when I played the same gangster game with them? They’d been playing gangsters on other people, pushing people out of the way, extorting money from people, scaring the living daylight out of everyone. Did they expect to see I’d go down on my knees begging, too? Oh, I was their match. I trained myself to deal with scums like them. I stepped up my game. I went to meet them in their turf. They threatened me with death, I answered!

“And where the hell were they when a devil comes on knocking? Oh there they are, tugging tails and running to their mothers, crying out to their mothers about Jack Lawai is coming to get them. Sons of bitches! I thought these goons were gangsters from Hong Kong. They’re nothing but some copycats from Baram.

“Against their match they could not keep up with the fight. They suddenly become religious, they claim innocent. So don’t try to start like a gangster if they cannot finish it like a gangster! If they don’t like what I did to them for their mother’s sake they’d better stop hurting their own people. What goes around comes around, it is karma, you see. They’re not the only warriors in town. If they think they’re strong then look again, look here, this native boy, a pure blood native, the grandson of Penghulu Anyie Ding and Penghulu Gau Karing, I can always test them. Name the game, place and time, I will answer. Kayan never cowers, anytime anywhere I will answer. AND HELL’S COMING WITH ME!”

Her first, it is definitely her first. His body remained seated but his voice fired up. It must have burnt the wind, too, for it was hot. She has not heard him with this language before. She definitely has not heard him in this powerful tone. It was a strange tone, a manly tone, a voice tone that was bursting with energy, grit and determination. This must be the voice that had commanded his friends. They had been willing to walk with him even to face the prospect of death.

She administers a small silly laughs, hoping it could ease up some tension in the air. But he is not smiling. He gets up, his two strong legs carry him to a brighter spot in the sandy beach a few steps away from her. He casts his eyes to the sky, observing the clouds as they cruise underneath the big crescent moon.

She watches quietly the man standing in front of her. He has his back to her as he keeps a lookout over his vast territory. He is smoking as if to mark his personal perimeter that is an exclusive bay extending to as far as the cigarette scent can go. Quite voluntarily she has submitted to his territorial behaviour. So here she remains seated in a lower position, in a lesser corner. Quite strangely, she feels the way she was feeling six years ago. She is feeling dominated by air of superiority he emits in his presence. The gang members must have had the same feelings of awe towards this leader, a champion they were proud to be with, a strong man who would not let anyone lay their hands on his friends. She feels small before this alpha male. Quite interestingly, she feels like she is his bitch. And, she likes the feeling.

Her curious eyes are studying him now. She is looking at him in the exact same manner she had looked at photos of airlines in a magazine he gave her many years ago. The still pictures, although colourful and informative, were not moving. But after looking at those photos nearly every day for a year she thought she could hear sound of aircrafts landing or taking off coming from underneath the photo. In that imagination no untoward incident had ever occurred on the runway. It was perfect landing perfect take-off each time. This man in front of her was perfect.

That was how she looked at him six, seven, eight years ago – perfect. In the eye of Little Fanny he was a perfect creature. She watched every move he made. She memorised every word he uttered. He made no mistake, never. He had no hesitation in his speech. He never apologized. He never cried, never asked for help, could never quit, undefeated. People said many bad things about him. Many girls had touched him. Some were good some were bitches. Yet, she continued to regard him in that light – perfect. He could never go wrong.

But that was only one half of the memory she had kept, the half that she had continued playing in her head. The same way she had been playing the airport scene. Her mind had tricked her. She let the trick to continue for years. If she had bothered to recall the other half of the memory she could find her tears. Many times she had wished he had stopped being brave, and foolish. After he had disappeared from Lung Dara she was somewhat relieved. It was probably better for him to go far, far away from a town that had never really welcomed him. Stay out of harm’s way.

She had hoped for his return on Christmas that year. He had not appeared. Two Christmas later all the Lawai had moved out of Lung Dara. She waited for news about him. When she heard something about him she sighed with relief each time... because he isn’t dead yet. But she had also heard he continued to live dangerously. Over the years she gradually came to terms with the likely possibility she will not see her best friend, her gang leader, ever again.

He now returns to her, alive, with one new scar in his forearm.

He sits beside her on the dry log. He has his face towards the sea.

Her body inches slowly towards his side until they are now rubbing shoulders. She is unsure of it but she braves herself to do it. She gently leans the side of her face against his shoulder. She feels his warmth. She can smell his perfume. She has her face towards the sea, in the same direction he is looking, although the sea has nothing in particular for them to look at.

Slowly she speaks. “We’ve learnt our lesson, Jack. We know you’re strong. We wish to have peace with you. Give it a try. We can be friends.”

“We’re already friends,” says a voice from above her head.

“What I mean is Chinese and you. I’m a Chinese, remember,” she clarifies. “Can we settle?” She remembers that was the phrase often used by guys back then whenever they wished to resolve bad blood between them.

“You’re only one half Chinese, Fanny. The native half is why you’re here.”

She withdraws herself from his side. In front of him she now stands. Next, she is kneeling before him with her hands stretched out to touch his shoulders, her face is facing his face directly, as if she has wanted to kiss him. But that is not her intention. She wants him to know how serious she is with a proposition she is about to make.

“Remember what you told me about a coin? It’s a coin but which side of the coin we want to look at that gives value to us. Here I come to you as a Chinese. So look to the Chinese side of me.” She is of a mixed-parentage Chinese-Kayan.

She can sense he is feeling uneasy. He probably needs some time for the new perceptions to really sink in. But she will not give him the time. She has been waiting for years to tell him this.

“Can we settle?” she asks once again.

“Which Chinese are you?”

“What for this question? Jack, don’t twist—”

“I don’t like Lung Dara Chinese. Other Chinese I like.”

“I’m Brunei Chinese. Geez! You don’t even know your cousin.” However, she cannot speak Chinese.

“Okay then. We’re good.”

“Not too fast.”

“Oh.”

“I’m also a Chinese from Lung Dara.”

“Don’t push your luck, lady.”

“But I insist on a lasting peace between Jack-Lihai and Lung Dara Chinese.”

“Why?”

“They look to the Chinese side of me, I am one of them, and also because there’s no reason for you to continue hating them. They’ve learnt their lessons. The Chinese in Lung Dara are no longer as bad as they were before.”

“I know. That’s what my friends told me.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say you acknowledge Fanny Wong-Anyie is a Lung Dara Chinese.”

“F—. This is not a game, Fanny Anyie!”

“It is not. I’ve got good reason for this. Say it.”

“Alright... Fanny Wong is a Chinese from Lung Dara, she has big round eyes although she’s a Chinese, and although she’s—”

“That’s enough. Thank you. And therefore I am a Lung Dara Chinese in the eye of Jack Lejau Lawai the grandson of Penghulu Anyie Ding and Penghulu Gau Karing. Don’t laugh!”

“Okay... I roll with it... But what gives you the right to represent the Lung Dara Chinese?”

“I am the reigning beauty queen for Baram Mandarin Chapter. I come to you as ambassador. Jack, don’t laugh, I’m serious! You listen to me.”

“Okay... This is getting interesting.”

“You said earlier that you’re willing to put an end to all the conflicts between you and Lung Dara Chinese on condition they invite you nicely to enter into a friendship with them.”

“I know. But I also said they first must come to see me about it.”

“Correct. So here I come to see you about it.”

“Oh.”

“I will mention about this meeting with you to the Kapitan, and ChuMeng.”

“Hmm....”

“Jack Lejau Lawai, can we settle?” She has asked earnestly.

She knows a pact between him and Lung Dara Chinese is necessary. News has reached Baram River recently that Jack Lejau Lawai is having a connection with some gang in Miri Town. Lung Dara fears for his return. The mob will come along with him. Either that or the gang can lay in ambush for them in Miri, his turf.

She knows Jack does not have such intention. Or he probably does!

For the peace of mind of everyone, including hers, especially hers, why not she hears it from the horse’s mouth in person, hence this proposal of peace. She knows a thing or two about gang affairs. She knows when they agree to settle, even when done verbally and casually, high chance they will honour that covenant. Proud men don’t turn against their own word. Jack Lawai is the proudest of the proud men.

He stands up. His body language indicates he is taking her seriously now. He tidies up his shirt, dusts the cloth. She hears him now. “Is this the reason why you’re with me tonight – they sent you here?”

She says with a smile, “I was on my way to my aeroplane when I thought I must make sure Jack the Hand will not destroy my hometown while I was away.”

“I cannot say no to you, can I?”

“If your grandfathers were here,” she knows he has great respect for the two chiefs, “I’m sure they’d want you to accept this friendship.”

“Alright,” he says as he stands upright and stiff, “the friendship is accepted!”

Excitedly, Fanny Wong extends one hand to Jack-Lihai. She waggles it to catch his attention. He looks at her smilingly. His lopsided smile shows sincerity.

The hand waggles.

The Kayan feigns hesitation.

The Chinese forces her hand into his.

The Kayan grumbles.

The Chinese insists on it.

The Kayan eventually grasps her hand.

A firm handshake is established.

The Chinese and the Kayan smile.

“No hug?” He has asked albeit nonchalantly.

Somewhat absentmindedly she has flung herself into his embrace, quite like what she did many years ago when she was extremely happy or grateful to him. Something feels different this time, however.

It is different. Her body feels it differently. Slowly their bodies separated. Blushingly she slips aside. Now standing side by side their faces turn toward the sea. They are momentarily lost in their thought; he to his, she to hers. “No more hating the Chinese from now on, okay, Jack.” She now remembers what she has wanted to say. “Can you promise me that, please?”

“What if they hate me?” he asks, quite seriously.

“Jack, if you have the need to hate someone, and if you feel your day is not complete without having someone to hate, go hate the Englishmen, okay.” She turns her body to face him only to realize they are actually standing very closely to each other. But they had been standing this closely several times earlier...

She laughs a little, in an attempt to conceal her embarrassment, while at the same time she moves back a step. “They don’t live in this country anymore and you’re not going to fly to their country anytime soon. At least I don’t have to worry everyday about you putting your infamous signature on someone’s limb.”

He smiles. He likes her wits.

He offers her a firm handshake.

She gladly took it.

Lung Dara is saved.

* * *

PART 2 - SUPREME MAREN

http://krisiskris.blogspot.com/2012/01/part-2.html

Return to Preface

http://krisiskris.blogspot.com/2012/01/preface.html