Reunion

Part 1

I bit my lip. Tears rose in my eyes unbidden. He turned away and faced the moonlit window, shoulders shuddering. I did not attempt to switch on the lights. Perhaps we did not want to face each other in the harsh vanilla fluorescent lighting. Perhaps some things were better left shrouded in shadows, unspoken. He had always been the strong, silent type who rarely betrayed his emotions. Perhaps he did not want me to see him crying.

The house was empty, quiet. There was now no one left except for the both of us. The cacophony of crickets singing in the grass was deafening. I thought of the casket in the living room and turned livid.

“It’s all your fault! If you had been more careful with your driving, she would still be alive today.”

He leaned against the wall, hunched and broken. In his left hand, he held a cane. The only sign that he had been party to that horrific accident which had claimed her life. The bold headlines and intrusive photographs which were published in The Star and the News Straits Times bore no witness to the turmoil that engulfed our little family after the fateful crash along the Karak highway. Both Dad and Mom had been driving home from attending his old college mate’s daughter’s wedding reception in Kuantan. I know, that road was infamous as an accident-prone stretch. I know, it was almost midnight and the street lamps were not functioning. Yes, it was raining and the road was slippery. Any driver could have made mistakes given those harsh conditions. Moreover the lorry driver was drunk. The lorry had swerved into Dad’s path. But yet, I could not forgive my father for his role in the whole affair.

He did not defend himself. I dabbed at my red-rimmed eyes furiously.

“You should have seen the lorry coming at you! I’m sure the headlights were on. Couldn’t you see?”

“Son, it was raining…” he began.

“Dad, enough of your excuses! You should have looked after mom properly. Now, it’s too late,” I turned and stormed out of the room, with nary a glance at Dad.

I packed my bags and left to return to university in London immediately after the funeral. Upon graduation, I landed a succession of increasingly well-paid jobs in the banking sector. Life was good. I managed to buy myself a Porsche and got myself a wife. A Malaysian Chinese girl who was in the biotechnology industry and whom I had met at a mutual friend’s party. I didn’t bother to invite Dad to the wedding. In fact, since the day I left home, I had barely thought of him. And one day, I got a job offer from an international company which had offices in Kuala Lumpur.

“Dear, I think it’s a good idea. My family is in Seremban and I would love to be closer to home,” Claire enthused over pasta one night.

I nibbled at a mushroom and said nothing. Family? What family? Anyway, the package was good and I didn’t mind moving back to make the wife happy. The contract was just for a few years. If things didn’t work out, we could always move back to the UK.

I received his e-mail during a meeting. The iPhone let out a sharp buzz, vibrating violently in my right trouser pocket.

“Sorry, excuse me, gentlemen.”

I stepped away from the round table, stood by the sun-kissed ceiling-to-floor length glass window and opened my Gmail app. In the streets below me, I could see the traffic building up. Strings of bulbous red lanterns were strung across the road and cheery Chinese New Year music blared from loudspeakers at the entrances of the shops. Of course, all I could hear in my air-conditioned bubble was a mere tinkling echo from the chaos below. Happy shoppers bustled along the walkways, bloated shopping bags in their arms. A wizened old lady sold furry pussy willow branches from a makeshift stall along the street. Her business wasn’t doing very well, I observed from my aerial vantage point.

I thought of my childhood celebrations. Mom would decorate the house with origami fish and paper lanterns that were crafted from red packets. The extended family would crowd into our home on the first and second days of the festival, snacking on peanuts and guzzling litres of fizzy orange Fanta. My cousins and I would run around the compound with sparklers in the breezy evenings while the adults lounged on the front porch in large rattan chairs, chatting and playing cards. And inevitably, the tall white ceramic vase at the corner of the living room would be filled with droopy pussy willow branches – angulated dark brown sticks dotted with conical soft downy catkins.

“Son, please come home for New Year Eve’s dinner. I will be waiting for you,” the e-mail read. As it had every year.

I hit the delete button swiftly and turned to rejoin the meeting.

I returned home late that night. There was much to follow-up from the meeting. The response from the Norwegian client had been positive and I wanted to sort out the job as soon as possible in order to beat the competing offers from the other firms. I opened the door to our apartment to find it plunged into darkness. It was quiet. Most likely Claire had gone to bed early, knowing that I had to work late that night. I silently chastised myself for working too hard. She was a very understanding partner. I would have to make up for my constant absences by bringing her on a vacation once I had settled this Norway job. Perhaps Maldives; she had always wanted to go there as she loved beach holidays. I opened the refrigerator door. There was no dinner there. I was slightly annoyed. Had she forgotten to prepare food for me? She knew that no matter how late work ended, I would still head home for dinner as I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.

The phone rang and I almost tripped over an electrical power cord as I rushed to pick up the receiver. I swore loudly.

“Helo, saya Sarjan Ahmad Tajuddin dari Balai Polis Pantai. Boleh saya bercakap dengan Encik Wong Koh Sing?”

“Ya, saya,” I replied.

“Kami telah menemui isteri Encik Wong. Beliau telah meninggal dunia dalam keadaan yang sangat mencurigakan. Bolehkah Encik Wong ke balai untuk membantu siasatan kami?”

I dropped the phone receiver at this point. My whole world spun and I fell against the sofa. Suddenly I had flashbacks of that night when my Dad and I had shared a common grief, when his world had similarly collapsed around him and all I had done was to lash out at him.

The next few days passed in a blur. Claire’s mother and sister from Seremban came to KL by KTM Komuter to help with the funeral arrangements. The post-mortem revealed that Claire had an undiagnosed heart defect, which led to her sudden and untimely demise. We found out from CCTVs installed in the mall that she had collapsed while shopping at the Aeon departmental store. Someone had initiated CPR, the paramedics had come as soon as they were informed, but it was too late. Nothing could have been done. Perhaps, that is what one would term ‘fate’.

And one morning, while packing up Claire’s belongings, I suddenly remembered his e-mail.

Part 2

“Aiyah, that silly old man spends all his time and money every year on food for the New Year, hoping that his son will come back,” Auntie Chan the vegetable seller whispered to her neighbor, Puan Ramlah. They watched his back disappear into the crowd, his creaky metal trolley laden with mushrooms, vegetables, fish, prawns, chicken and soybean sheets. His gnarled and liver-spotted left hand clutching a bent walking stick as he navigated the maze-like wet market complex with hesitant shuffling steps.

“Ya, I know. His son abandoned him after the wife died kan? There was an accident, right? It was all over the papers,” Puan Ramlah gave her friend a knowing wink. They both shrugged their shoulders. Stupid old man, wasting his time. Did he really think his son would return for the New Year reunion dinner this year? Wasting money and effort.

“Might as well donate to the old folks home lah,” Auntie Chan grumbled. Then as the customers came, the two ladies forgot about Uncle Wong and got back to business. Sales were always brisk before the Chinese spring festival.

Uncle Wong tottered into his single-storey bungalow with red plastic bags filled with the raw produce he had purchased from the market. He got to work promptly. The arthritis had slowed him down, but had not stopped him. Anyway after his only son left for UK, never to return, he had to survive on his own. He cleaned the chicken, prawns and fish under running tap water and soaked the vegetables in a stainless steel bowl. Then, removing the blackened wok from a hook on the wall, he hummed softly as he started to prepare the feast. He had the menu in his mind’s eye: Ah Sing’s favorite roast chicken, steamed prawns with ginger, deep fried fish in a sweet-and-sour sauce and lor hon zhai.

He laid out all the dishes on the Formica-topped table in the dimly-lit dining room. Then he sat and waited as he had for the past ten years. Every year, he had ended up eating a small portion of the feast and freezing most of the food to be slowly consumed over the next week. But he never gave up hope. As long as he was still alive, he would try to cling on to any possibility that his son would return home one year.

Uncle Wong glanced up at the clock ticking on the wall. Half past seven already. The food was getting cold. A stumpy-tailed lizard scarpered across the wall and disappeared into the crack between the wall and the plaster ceiling. He sighed and picked up his chopsticks.

He heard the roar of a car engine pulling up into his driveway. The sound of a car door opening and slamming shut. Brisk footsteps heading towards the house.

The old man quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and reached for his trusty walking stick. He reached the living room just in time to see a tall shadow darken the doorway and slip off his shoes at the threshold.

“Ah Sing,” the old man called out happily.

“Dad, I’m home,” the younger man simply said.