AWAKENING
Yusuf Martin, Malaysia
Syafiqah was not sure just where the old fragment of book came from, but she was bored and it was the only material to hand that she had not read. She had finished the American book about the teenage vampire, the slushy one that was made into a film, that one with that American girl whose father had been a mediocre country and western singer some years before. Therefore, as it was raining, she reached for the yellowing book, wiped the dust carefully from the first and last pages and the broken spine, sat on the corner of her bed and began to read.
In the golden morning kampong half-light, still slightly scented by a smoky mosquito coil, Amir Hussain, a bronzed, muscular young Indian stood in his newly laundered white dhoti, which lingered teasingly between the girlish curvature of his waist to a centimetre above his youthful knees.
Syafiqah noted that the book had no actual cover, only pages and a spine.
Several of the first stories, in what appeared to be a volume of short stories, seemed to be missing. All the information Syafiqah had about the book was in fine print at the top of the page facing her—page 62. This suggested that the book, when it was whole, had been
She shrugged; the title meant nothing to her, but, a little intrigued, she began dipping into the story. At sixteen, with all the normal peculiarities of a mid-teen, Syafiqah readily found herself identifying with the main character, Farah, a Malay girl who, like Syafiqah, lived in a small rural kampong.
Eagerly, Syafiqah read on, but a little puzzled.
Shafts of Mediterranean yellow light pierced the musky ambience of the wooden lean-to’s interior. It revealed a fresh glistening moistness on Amir’s arms and upper torso as he strained to manipulate firmly resistant oiled dough, in preparation for making roti canai.
‘Shafts of Mediterranean’. Syafiqah had read about the Mediterranean.
It was in Europe, wasn’t it? Why were there shafts of European light coming into a kampong lean-to. Was it a kampong lean-to in Europe then? How odd.
With a combination of curiosity and the need to be engaged in something, Syafiqah decided that to enjoy the story, she must really put her questioning aside until she had finished reading it, otherwise there was no way she was going to enjoy it. So, on she read…
Small beads of sweat gathered at his brow, catching the sunlight as Amir toiled in the warmth of his father’s morning shop, serving to highlight the smooth, rich, dark, chocolate brownness of his skin. Carefully, he wiped the salty, oily sweat away, preventing it from falling into the dough he was kneading and tainting it.
‘Eee-yuk, sweat,’ said Syafiqah with a mock shudder, then ‘Mmm… chocolate.’
Amir was customarily focussed, earnest about his task as he continued massaging the moist dough until it became pliant, kneading the soft, slightly resistant substance, feeling it, in its tenaciousness, bouncing back at the touch of his firm masculine hands. For a moment, just for a moment, the soft silky dough enveloped his hands in a supple oily caress. Busy, Amir did not allow the dough to linger, rejecting its touch and the promise of soft intimacy.
Ten-what? What is tenaciousness, is it like nine-aciousness, but with one extra. Syafiqah reached for her
In the robust rhythm of his work method, Amir could feel the smooth slippery dough squeeze between his strong fingers like a gentle lover’s kiss, warm, soft yet irrepressibly elusive. Repeatedly, Amir touched the waiting dough, and the dough, though to all intents and purposes inanimate, touched him gently, lovingly back. Even when Amir was a little rough, the dough embraced his roughness, subsumed it into itself and gave pliancy in return, understanding that tough love often came before the needed tenderness.
When the initial pulling and touching were spent, when Amir understood that the dough, despite qualms, was truly ready, Amir would take firm hold of the oiled, manipulated dough in both of his strong, damp hands, lift the dough and toss it back firmly, almost roughly onto its oiled bed. He stretched the dough, massaged it, feeling it relax, become more submissively elastic under his sturdy, determined hands. Again, the supple dough would be lifted and thrust back, down onto the waiting surface, and again, and again, adding to its already acquiescent suppleness. A total of eight times, the now obedient dough would be lifted and returned, forcefully, manfully to the oily surface, its compliance subtly growing with each vigorous stretch.
Quickly, the dexterous Amir would flip the corners of the oily dough over, side by damp side and side over oily side into the centre, until all four sides of the griddle bread lay together at the centre of the dough, forming closely intimate layers. Then, the mass would be lifted once more and, deftly grabbing one side, Amir would gently pull it over the whole-a headscarf over a newly married woman’s wanton tresses, indicating her freshly found sensual status, binding the succulent, moistly accommodating layers together.
These infinitely smooth layers of kneaded dough and oil would aid the bread to become crispy, comfortably hard when heated on the sturdy flat griddle, separating them out, giving the roti canai its traditional crusty layered texture and deeply delicious flavour. Amir would manhandle each roti canai in exactly the same way, resolutely stretching and pulling, grasping and caressing until the whole batch was ready for the griddle and, ultimately, the ecstasy of gratuitous consumption by some waiting, welcoming, mouth.
Mmm, this is making me hungry; I wonder what
Most days, in the glow of the early morning and in the failing roseate light of evening time, Amir worked hard for his father-making roti canai at their rural wooden lean-to and making money by selling the crispy, slightly oily, unleavened griddled breads to their eager regular customers.
Through his ardent toil, Amir gained in stature both in his family and in the local community. The heroic Amir’s hard working diligence was the talk of the kampong. He was regular, punctual, and served the best-made roti canai for miles around. Everyone knew this, everyone appreciated this.
For the few idle female customers-those with nothing better to do than to dream, sigh over young athletic men-and the few heavily breathing male customers too, it also helped that Amir was devilishly handsome, with sharp, aesthetically pleasing Indian features. For he was as close as the kampong dwellers would ever get to the uncommon beauty of an Indian movie star. No doubt, Amir being comely added more than a frisson of spice to the kampong dwellers daily lives and to their purchasing of the layered breads, knowing that, inevitably, Amir was there waiting, silently servile to service their pleasure.
Because of Amir’s youth, his gentle, yet firm mannerisms and his obvious beauty, he seemed to attract many admirers, young and old. Early in the morning, every morning, as the kampong awakened from another hot, sultry night of insect orchestrations and firefly illuminations, before too many other kampong dwellers were abroad, two mid-teen schoolgirls-Farah and Mira-would be sent by their mothers to collect roti canai for their respective father’s breakfasts. It had become their daily routine.
Along the worn kampong track, between the roundly, curvaceously pendulous papaya and the firmly erect banana plants, past shadowy tall coconut trees blessed with hirsute rotund fruit and scented curry-leaf bushes, the two friends would walk, perhaps a little too eagerly, heading in the scant morning light towards the wooden lean-to where Amir, the kampong’s master baker, created roti canai.
