“Pansy…”
“Careful, George,” Pansy whispered. “Others are looking.”
“Ha! Ha! Look at the young lovers,” the kampong folk teased. “Asmara. Romance is in the air.”
“Oi!” Kim Guek shouted, to show that she too had noticed.
George and Pansy sprang apart, and Pansy demurred. George was frustrated. He was smouldering with unreleased passion. For the sake of propriety, they did endeavour to search in separate areas when they were being watched, but gradually gravitated towards each other, as if swept into unison by the waves. The force between them was like a magnet. George tried to keep his brimming desires in check. They talked and they laughed—so much to discover, so many years to bridge! Besides the harvesting of the seaweeds, Pansy taught him how to unearth and pick the edible sea molluscs, the gong-gong, cockles, mussels and clams, from the moist rippled mudflats.
“So that’s what those people were doing…”
“What people?”
“This morning, when I was riding over. I saw people in the middle of the river, searching for things.”
“Oh, yes. Village folk know how to source for food everywhere. The molluscs are easier to dig out at low tide. They are cleaned, then cooked very lightly or blanched in hot water, and eaten with sambal belachan,” Pansy explained. “By the way, Mak said you’re welcome to stay for lunch.”
“Oh, that’s very kind of her. Hmmm, my mouth is watering already,” George said. “I’m just so happy to be here with you, Pansy. You’ve showed me another way of living. I never thought I’d enjoy my bare feet squishing and squelching on the mudflats. My parents have always forbidden me to approach the kampongs.”
“Yes, people in brick houses think our villages harbour disease, immorality and gangsters,” said Pansy. “We’re used to such disparaging remarks. Still, they are useful as they keep nosy people away from our villages so we have peace. Indeed, there’s a sense of being at one with the universe when your senses are engaged in nature. I love being barefooted most of the time. So much so that my feet probably won’t fit into conventional shoes. They are so large and ugly…”
“Pansy, my darling, no part of you can be ugly.”
“Shh, don’t call me that…” Pansy said, but was delighted nonetheless.
It suddenly occurred to Pansy that Hock Chye would have frowned on her manner of talking to George, looking him directly in the eyes, and not averting hers. The thought amused her and she laughed.
“I like the way you laugh,” George said. “But what’s the joke?”
“My father was stricter than my mother,” she said. “If he had been alive and saw me chatting with you like this so boldly, he would have skinned me alive!”
“He wouldn’t! He just wanted to keep you feminine and chaste. Which you are. I would have followed his rules of propriety to a certain extent. I would be strict if I had a daughter.”
“Come on,” Pansy said. “At the rate you are going, you wouldn’t pick enough shellfish for a meal!”
This was a totally new experience for George, gathering food fresh from the wild. It must be like this in the kampongs which were surrounded by forests and fields, where people could go to pick ubi kayu or its shoots, puchok ubi kayu, kangkong, wild garlic and edible berries like the golden buah susu whose juice was white like milk, hence its Malay name, which means milk fruit. There was such magic to be able to do this, as if nature was bountiful and selfless in its giving, and people need not starve if they knew how to cultivate the land and be in harmony with it. George was really excited, being out in the open and doing simple tasks. He was deliriously joyful.
They were so engrossed in each other and in their harvesting that they did not realise that they strayed right down the beach where the pillboxes were opposite Kampong Bedok. George was tempted to pull Pansy into the enclosed privacy of the pillbox, away from prying eyes to kiss her luscious lips. He imagined what it would be like to taste her lips.
“We better get back,” Pansy said, breaking into his thoughts.
George could see the kelong clearly now.
“I wonder what it must be like to live on that kelong and work as a fisherman all day. It looks like such a tranquil life,” George said.
“Don’t be fooled by looks,” Pansy said. “Fishing as an occupation is hard work.”
“What was your father like, Pansy? Tell me about his work.”
A tinge of sadness painted her face as she talked about Hock Chye, who died when he was only thirty-three. Kim Guek and Pansy had sat at home that terrible evening, huddled together, like the many other families in the seaside villages, worried for Hock Chye and the other fishermen out at sea as the monsoon raged, the heavy rains beating down their attap houses, the fierce winds banging their loose window shutters, lifting some sheaves of roof and whooshing under the house, bringing down some trees and old fences, picking up buckets, kerosene tins and brooms, tossing them into the air like playthings. Crowns of trees were swept aside like hair caught by a strong wind. The villagers worried that the storm might break the spindly legs of their attap houses on stilts.
“Don’t let him die! Don’t let him die!” Kim Guek had moaned. “I didn’t say goodbye properly. Oh please don’t let him die…”
The thing that plagued Kim Guek the most was that she usually made it a point to see Hock Chye off as he set out each evening, but on that day she hadn’t. It was a cruel twist of fate that would haunt her for the rest of her remaining days. In her mind she would play and replay that moment, rewrite the scene so that she was there to send him off properly on his last journey. She would normally stand by his sampan, helping him to get his gear together. Then she would kiss her
