Animal Life of Penang – by Claire Aman
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Penang used to be interesting. Back then, young, you could pay to let a swallow escape from a wicker cage. You could choose a crab from a tank in a laneway. You could wake up on the beach at dawn. The tide could be out, your clothes slightly damp. You would remember nothing. Afterwards, you could live your whole life.
You remember the garden in the Sunbird Guesthouse, a mango tree, bougainvillea, frangipani. In that shadowed garden were others, too. There was Goh Kim Heng lying on a bamboo lounge, eyes half closed. You called him Joe. There was your neighbour, Quinn from up the hallway, pale-headed, careful of himself. It took you a few days to work out he was only an Australian. There were Italians, French, a German. Beyond the garden was the beach, then the wharf, and the fishermen. Out at sea, thunderheads forming.
You’d bought a guidebook and a backpack. You left Tullamarine Airport the day Bob Hawke won the election, but you didn’t have time to vote. You wouldn’t be back for a while. Your name – Louise – meant famous warrior, and there was no question you were the master of your expedition. You scaled a volcano in Java. You strode the alleyways of Bandung and Medan, talking to women doing laundry and squatting down to beggars. You were almost a local, eating with your fingers at food carts, learning the words for chili, egg, prawn. Golden-shouldered, green sarong, your hair piled on your head, you could have gone anywhere next. You chose a fishing village on the island of Penang. You didn’t need any help to heave your backpack off the bus. You were healthy, with bright eyes and shiny hair. Feel those wrists, sturdy. Now touch the wrist of a Chinese durian-vendor in Georgetown, or a bus driver. His bones are light, as if from a smaller variety. Or away from the town, on the coast, a Malay fisherman’s lean and powerful arm.
(Which crab? So many aquariums, such a range of shellfish. Their bodies bump against the sides of the tanks. Live display, very fresh. The chosen crab will lie motionless on a plate, glistening with red sauce, a claw dangling over the edge. Or fragrant little prawns curled up on hot stones. That one, I’ll have that one.)
At the Sunbird Guesthouse, Joe is in charge of the rooms. He’s given you one with a window, red hibiscus outside. By the third night he’s sleeping with you. You discover he hates sand in the bed.
‘Be careful around the wharf,’ he says, bundling the sheets and billowing them out from the open window. Now he looks like a fisherman himself, casting a net.
‘I don’t mind sand.’
‘I’ve seen you over there,’ he says.
You shrug, and reach over to touch the skin on his hip. He’s older than you. When you look into his eyes you see the whites are discoloured. It’s easy to make him smile, but now, with the sheets, he turns away.
You never once see Joe on the beach. Three days after you arrive, he takes you on a walk to the rainforest, following a track all the way to a waterfall. You two lie on a flat rock all afternoon, nuzzling, smoking weed and eating roti from a plastic bag. Cicada song swells, and you take off your shirt. Joe’s clean, quick and clever. He hardly moves his feet but there he is, up ahead on the way back. When he laughs he doesn’t make any sound. He knows nothing about you but he’s kind to you in the way of kindness to a bird or rabbit. That time in the forest you even nibble the flaky roti out of his hand, and he curls over with that crazy silent laughter.
You don’t know anything about Joe either, but he smells familiar in your bed. Hokkien is his language but he speaks English, Malay, a little French and some Italian. He shows you a tree in the forest that gets a fungus attack inside, making the heartwood turn fragrant. Downstairs at night, he’ll pick up his guitar. Joe is smooth, Joe is fine. Everyone likes him. You know he is not the reason you woke up on the beach slightly damp, your eyes unruly in your head.
“Joe is smooth, Joe is fine. Everyone likes him. You know he is not the reason you woke up on the beach slightly damp, your eyes unruly in your head.”
The Sunbird Guesthouse smells of garlic, incense, frangipani and dogs. The dogs are mostly asleep downstairs, their noses between their paws. They’ll bark, but when Joe speaks to them they’ll lie back down. One time there was a piebald cat at the gate, unnoticed by the dogs. It sat still and let you push your fingers against the hard bumps on its skull. There are birds in the garden: orioles, flowerpeckers, spiderhunters. More travellers – Dutch, Japanese, Danish – have come and gone, staying a few days before catching the train north. They say the Thai beaches will be better. It’s true the village smells of rotting fish when the wind is from the north, but you’ve stayed on. Sleeping with Joe, walking in the rainforest, sketching. Going to the wharf and hanging around the fishermen.
The Australian, Quinn, stays on too. The first time you see him is on the stairs. As you pass each other, you look into his face. Although he is looking straight ahead, there’s a warmth, you think. Wherever he goes he leaves a scent of aromatic oil. He gets up early and goes to the beach. He hangs his washing, he makes tea, he does yoga in the garden. You saw him at the wharf one time when you were talking to the fishermen.
This day, nothing much is happening. It’s still humid. The garden shadows are long. Things are rustling and chuckling in the leaf litter. Somewhere there’s a soft scream – a monkey? Joe stretches. He pads over to the gate and latches it. Nobody else is moving. They’re all lying on chairs or spread-legged on the grass. The Italians had made a ganja cake at lunchtime and offered it around. You took a piece but you only ate a corner. Quinn didn’t take any.
‘We’ll get a storm,’ says Joe. You look up at the sky. It’s blue above you, but out beyond the beach there’s a pile of cloud.
After Joe has gone to check the windows, Quinn puts down his book and goes to the kitchen. From the doorway he offers you a paper bag with small green balls covered in coconut shavings.
‘Ondeh ondeh,’ he says.
You take one and bite into it. It’s fleshy inside with a sudden sweetness at the centre.
‘Where are you from again?’ you ask.
‘All over.’ he says. ‘I feel at home here, I like the people.’
‘The guidebook says there are tensions.’
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘Joe runs everything up here, the Malays down there go fishing, everyone’s happy. There’s that rain bird again. Hear it?’
You wait, but you don’t hear anything.
Quinn is always pale. Today his face, if you touched it, would be clammy. He averts his body slightly when he talks to you, holding his shirt to him. You ask if he’s alright and he says he’s getting over hepatitis.
‘Not the contagious one,’ he says, and proffers the bag, smiling into your eyes. You delve in, biting into the glutinous stuff, waiting for the sweet burst.
The Italians have been here for a week now. They’ve brought along their own sack of coffee from Italy. In the mornings they come downstairs late and take a long breakfast in the frangipani shade, lounging on cushions and mats they drag outside. Yesterday they cooked fish cacciucco for everyone. Their arms are soft and loose, they laugh easily. They have nothing to do with you waking up on the beach, that’s for certain. Now, dozing after their ganja cake, they’re almost hidden in dapples and stripes as the light moves across their fragrant corner of the garden.
The French couple are still asleep, side by side on a straw mat, mouths identically open. They always speak to each other in whispers. Sometimes you can walk into a room and you won’t even know they’re there. He’s older than her but it looks like they have everything they need from each other. She opens her eyes. Slap goes her hand on a mantis that has crawled onto her arm. Quinn, coming out of the kitchen, stops for a moment.
The German is awake. He squats on the verandah, tearing the leaves off a pineapple. He slides a knife from his bag, raises his head and sniffs the air.
‘Thunder,’ he says. ‘The fishermen won’t go out tonight.’
He slices off a chunk of the fruit and chews it, juice shining on his lips.
He tells you the fishermen invited him to go on their boat.
‘I said no thanks, I eat fruit only, and they called me crazy-man.’
He opens his mouth to laugh and you see the yellow shreds between his teeth. Later you see him alone in the kitchen over the leftover cacciucco.
The fishermen invited the German to go fishing but they didn’t invite you. The day before, the younger fisherman held out a green fruit to you.
‘You – village or town?’
You bit into the fruit. It was pink inside. ‘I come from the mountains,’ you said, but you knew this wasn’t what he meant. The Dandenongs are not really the mountains; it’s the city. The fishermen are village. They sleep on the boat, frying fish on the deck among coils of rope. They’re no older than you but everything is stained, frayed, salty. You like the way the youngest fisherman looks at you. He’s your friend. He’s already taught you words in Malay about the sea, and names of fish and fruit.
“You like the way the youngest fisherman looks at you. He’s your friend. He’s already taught you words in Malay about the sea, and names of fish and fruit.”
He told you the name of the sweet pink fruit. ‘Jambu.’
‘You marry?’ he asked.
‘No.’ You wondered how that would feel. A fisherman’s wife, waving to the boat.
You asked if you could come fishing.
He was suddenly grave. ‘Woman, no can.’
‘Women can go on boats in Australia,’ you said. ‘Why not here?’
‘No can.’
Joe is right that humid afternoon – a storm blows up before midnight. The thunderclaps are like planets colliding. A few fat raindrops swell to a torrent lashing the roof, then the power goes out. Something is banging and banging outside. You wrap a sarong around yourself and follow Joe downstairs in the dark. The dogs are baying. Someone’s pounding at the gate. Joe picks up a torch and pulls a plastic poncho over his head. He comes back with the fishermen behind him, then they’re all inside with water dripping off their clothes. Now the room smells of fish and wet dog. The biggest dog is snarling at one of the fishermen. Joe speaks to it, he reaches behind him, and it flees to the kitchen, its belly to the ground. The other dogs lie down, whining. Joe lights a candle.
‘Go back to bed,’ he tells you.
But you stay standing at the foot of the stairs, holding your sarong together with one hand. You’re not Joe’s property.
He brings an armload of mats and cushions. The fishermen stand muttering, eyes averted, while Joe gestures at the floor. None of the fishermen speaks to you. Even your friend doesn’t give you a smile. Joe is a slight figure, surrounded by the dripping men. The muttering goes on and on, rising and falling. No-one is budging. Joe motions at the floor again.
‘Go upstairs,’ he tells you again. You go to the kitchen and pat the dogs. You go upstairs when you’re ready, tucking your sarong over your breasts. The men fall silent as you pass.
When you come down in the morning, the fishermen have left. The mats have been shoved into a heap.
‘You should have gone upstairs,’ says Joe. ‘You people are all the same.’
‘What people?’
He pours green tea for himself and carries it outside. You stand at the kitchen door. The mats left in the garden by the Italians have been blown against the fence, and a plastic chair is upside down. Over the road a flame tree has fallen over.
Joe finishes his tea. He combs his hair. He irons a shirt.
‘The fishermen didn’t want to sleep downstairs with the dogs,’ he tells you as he does up his buttons. ‘Malays say dogs are unclean.’
‘The guidebook doesn’t talk about that.’
‘Lots of things your book doesn’t talk about,’ he says. He reaches past you to take his keys from the hook. ‘Don’t go down there. They’re angry.’
You go back to your Malay dictionary. There are always new words to learn. When Joe’s gone, you walk down to the water.
At the wharf, the roof of the shed has been blown off. The fishing boats look alright but it’s hard to tell with such shabby vessels. Joe’s wrong, the fishermen aren’t angry. The youngest fishermen, your friend, asks you a question.
‘You like Coca-Cola?’
‘Mungkin,’ you say. It’s Malay for maybe. Not yes. Not no. Maybe.
He calls out something to the other fishermen which you don’t understand, and they all turn and look at you. Soon you leave them and walk back to the guesthouse, stopping to buy fried bananas. You rest in the afternoon heat, the ceiling fan stirring the air above you.
When the sun is dropping and the birds are loud in their roosts, you start getting ready. You brush your hair. You do up the buttons on your watermelon-red top. Joe is in the kitchen playing chess with one of the Italians and he doesn’t look up as you pass. Later, you can remember seeing that piebald cat as you closed the gate behind you; it was cuffing and tossing a small limp creature. You remember waiting to cross the road, then the feel of sand scraping on wooden plank, and inside they were laughing, white teeth in yellow lamplight, a glass for you.
Next thing you know, you’re lying on the beach, your clothes slightly damp. You lie with your eyes closed, listening to the sea lapping, over and over. You have no thoughts apart from the lapping. You lie very still, becoming aware of a fragrance. It’s like violets, honey, bitter wood. There’s that, and the sea.
You know that smell. It’s Quinn, the ayurvedic oil he uses.
You open your eyes. It’s so bright. You close them, move your head from side to side and open them again. Yes, Quinn is there, cross-legged on the sand. The air is cool – it must be early. Your mouth is dry rubber. You go lurching up the beach towards the Sunbird Guesthouse with your eyes careening. The sun is dazzling. You stop to vomit, kicking sand to cover it. Where are your shoes? Quinn is near you. He opens the gate for you. You stumble through the garden, in through the back door, so very blurry, and with the last of your willpower you go tilting up the stairs, to your room, to your bed. Joe rolls over.
You sleep all day and all night, and all the next morning. You wake up with a pounding head and dry mouth. Joe isn’t there. You manage to walk down the stairs and out to the garden, where you sit hunched on a bench. Quinn comes out and sits down beside you.
It doesn’t feel like, you know, anything happened. If someone, after everything, had done up your clothes and rolled you onto the beach, you couldn’t tell. You sit staring at the prints your bare feet have left on the sandy path.
‘Lucky the bastards didn’t dump you in the sea,’ says Quinn.
He reaches for your hand and cradles it for a moment; it’s a small, curled creature.
You take your cup to the kitchen. There’s a corkboard on the wall with timetables, photos and the yellowing notes travellers leave for each other. The night train to Bangkok leaves at eight o’clock; there’s a bus to the station.
Years later, in Melbourne, you were reminded of this time. You had one of those traps with a door that snaps shut when the mouse eats the bait. You’d caught a mouse in your kitchen and you were about to release it in the park. You opened the door and tipped the cage up, and the mouse went scurrying, scuttling, scrabbling away into the long grass. ▼
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