'Peniti Ronce'
By Dewi Anggraeni
Despite last night's downpour, by late morning the weather had become oppressively hot again. Serena was grateful that she had come from Jakarta via Singapore, instead of arriving straight from Melbourne. Stepping ahead of Kurt, who had dropped back along the narrow sidewalk, she took a handkerchief out of her bag and began wiping her forehead, but she didn't stop or look back.
Kurt was unusually quiet. He was puzzled by Serena's mood. He knew he'd irritated Serena by wanting to draw up a plan every day of their trip.
"This is not the way I travel, Kurt," Serena had said, unsuccessfully hiding her exasperation. "I've done it your way for the whole of last week, so now we're in Malacca, you do it my way."
There had been such finality in her tone that Kurt had felt offended at first. But he was a man of reason. He conceded that Serena was right. So he duly let her lead. After all, going to Malacca was Serena's idea.
Serena however, was not leading. She walked beside him absently as if she'd forgotten that Kurt was there. When a trishaw driver addressed them, offering to take them to see historic sites, Serena ignored him. Kurt had to go out of his way to be polite to him, which made it very difficult to explain that they did not want a ride.
Serena just kept walking, occasionally dodging other pedestrians, many of whom stopped to stare at her, then at him.
Kurt was on the point of saying something when he saw her face. She had a slight frown, making her neat Eurasian features more pronounced. But it was her eyes that nearly stopped him in his tracks.
Her light-brown eyes were moist and slightly red, as if Serena had been crying, and they were focussed on the middle distance, but there was no trace of the intentional shutting out of other people. He looked at her intently and she showed no signs of her usual self-consciousness whenever she felt his gaze on her.
For a few moments he seemed to lose her. She had become a stranger, who by chance was walking alongside him on a busy street in Malacca. Kurt had seen Serena angry, but this was not anger.
Without warning, Serena turned onto another busy street, weaving her way through vehicles and pedestrians. Kurt followed closely, looking around for a street name, nearly falling into an open drain. He finally found a signpost at an intersection with an even narrower street.
"Jl. Hang Jebat," he mumbled to himself. Then he remembered something. "Rene, wasn't it Jonkers Street you were talking about? A street of antique antiques and modern antiques?" he asked, laughing at his own description of the place.
Serena turned around to look at him. Then, as if she'd just woke up, she blinked, squinted and began looking at her surroundings.
"What'd you say?" she asked without looking at Kurt, as if she were not particularly addressing him.
"Hey, are you OK?" Kurt grabbed her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. It broke whatever spell had been holding her. That was one of Kurt's phrases which she found interminably irritating. Whenever he had done something unpleasant, like arriving half an hour late, instead of admitting his error, he would look hurt and annoyed by her sullenness and ask, "Are you OK?"
This time however she didn't feel annoyed. She had been prized out of another world. And she didn't know whether to be pleased or disappointed. She looked up into Kurt's face.
"I had a dream. A bad dream," she mumbled. She was looking straight into Kurt's eyes, yet he wasn't sure she was talking to him.
"You mean last night?" he asked.
She didn't answer. Instead she edged out of his arms and began moving along the cluttered sidewalk. Several people turned their heads.
Her mother holds out her hand and reaches for Serena's. They are sitting along the wall at a wedding reception in Jakarta, watching guests who keep arriving, stepping past them. Many of the women are wearing kebaya-kain (traditional blouse and sarong) like her mother. However she notices that her mother's clothes are a lot more subdued in color and much less ornate than those worn by some of the women in the room.
Then Serena is aware that many heads are turning toward the entrance. She follows the gaze and involuntarily gasps, squeezing her mother's hand.
A beautiful woman steps in, accompanied by an older man who, like most of the male guests, is wearing a somber-colored suit. This emphasizes the woman's stunning beauty.
She is wearing a lacy mauve kebaya over a dark purple camisole. Her kain is dark blue batik with red and pink motifs which subtly outline her curves. Among her obviously expensive accessories is a clasp along the front of her kebaya. Serena cannot keep her eyes off it.
When the woman approaches, as if aware of the girl's attention, she looks down and smiles at her. Serena feels as if a queen had granted her an audience. She blushes, smiling shyly, then lowers her gaze.
Serena is only 13 but she is tall compared to her friends and Indonesian cousins. People always comment on her height, adding that it must be the Caucasian blood in her. Being the youngest of three children, she is very close to her mother, who generally treats her like a close friend.
She feels her mother tighten her squeeze on her hand as they watch the couple walk toward the row of seats where the bride, bridegroom and their entourage are receiving guests.
"That was Magda Rompas, the famous film star. Did you see the peniti ronce, the chain clasp on her kebaya?" whispers her mother. She turns to look at her mother's face and nods.
It is then that she realizes that her mother looks slightly shocked. Seeing Serena's inquiring look, she continues, "You remember I told you about my late mother's peniti ronce?"
Serena sits up abruptly, looking wide-eyed at her mother. "You mean ... ?"
Her mother frowns a little. "I can't be 100 percent sure, Rena, but I am 90 percent sure."
"How?" asks Serena, overcome with awe.
"I felt it, as I stared into the eyes of the snake. I was almost ... enchanted."
The incident clouds their enjoyment of the party, because her mother becomes quiet and distant. When they arrive home, her mother tells her more about the clasp.
"My mother, being a Sundanese woman and very artistic, did not hold the same superstitions that had passed down through generations of my father's ethnic Chinese family. She designed the clasp herself and had it made by an Indian jeweler in town. When she collected it and brought it home, everyone in the family admired it, until Uncle Huat saw it. He told my mother to get rid of it at once, because it would bring sadness to the family.
"It wasn't the snake-shaped body of the clasp, he said, it was the stone that was used for its eyes and the spots along its body. My mother thought it was a ruby, but Uncle Huat insisted that it was not a ruby, which would have been harmless, but it was something else. He mentioned a Chinese name which nobody remembers."
"Where did Grandma get the stone then?" Serena asks.
"Someone who had lost a lot of money on a gambling spree, I believe. I never learned the whole story, Rena, because my mother died when I was only five. I was told that she'd died of a broken heart."
"Who told you that?"
"Some busy-body aunt who probably didn't like her in the first place, because none of my elder sisters said anything about that. In fact, after my father remarried, my mother seemed to have been pushed into the recesses of everyone's memories. She was just forgotten." Serena detects a controlled sob in her mother's voice.
The events of 20 years earlier came flooding back to her, vividly unraveling as if they were happening again, when she awoke from her dream.
She was walking hand-in-hand with Kurt in a tropical rain forest, when she heard her mother's voice warning her not to go further. But Kurt, who obviously hadn't heard anything, kept walking. She called and called to Kurt, but he didn't appear to hear her.
Overcome with fear, she ran after him, yelling at him to stop and come back. Then she saw something flashing across her face and falling to the ground. Serena jumped. It was a slim tree snake. It raised its head and prepared to attack. Serena screamed and stepped sideways to avoid it, but she didn't see the hole which swallowed her. She fell and fell, screaming all the way.
She woke up to find that Kurt had gone to the gym.
Jonkers Street was already crowded with vehicles and pedestrians, which seemed to interweave without touching each other. Kurt felt a little clumsy whenever he had to step over a leftover offering or an open drain. He saw how the locals walked gracefully undisturbed by the chaotic traffic, the heat and the humidity. Then he saw Serena walking into an antique jewelry shop.
He followed her in. It was almost empty, apart from a young woman who turned out to be the shop manager.
The woman greeted them, inviting them to browse. Serena had become more talkative. She asked sociable questions about the shop and the items displayed in the cabinets. Kurt threw in the occasional comment and query, and they were soon having a light conversation about the Malacca Straits-born Chinese culture.
Apart from the merchandise in the locked cabinets, there were less expensive items placed on open shelves or hanging on decorative branches made of dark wood. Kurt had expected Serena to examine those as she usually would, but Serena, while still involved in the conversation, appeared intent on examining the contents of a cabinet in the middle of the showroom.
Kurt was slightly curious, but found what the manager was saying interesting enough to linger behind and chat with her. Suddenly she turned toward Serena and smiled.
"Ah, I know which one has caught your attention!" she called out to Serena, who stood transfixed, her eyes unblinking, her right hand suspended several centimeters from her face.
"It's the snake clasp, isn't it?" the woman had begun to walk toward the cabinet. "It's only arrived 10 days ago, and already everyone is drawn to it, lah!"
Kurt was more intrigued by Serena's reaction than the manager's comment, which he regarded as a kind of sales gimmick. In several bounds he was beside Serena, his arm around her shoulders.
"Can we have a look at it?" he asked the manager.
Serena tried to stop him. "No, no! I was just ... "
"There's no harm in looking at it, is there?" he said to the manager, winking. "Besides, I want to have a look too."
When the manager handed the snake clasp to Kurt, Serena felt the blood drain from her head, and her knees nearly buckled.
"What's the matter, dear?" Kurt asked, putting his right arm around her shoulders, keeping his left arm stretched out, the snake clasp hanging loosely from his middle finger.
The manager called out to an assistant in the back of the shop to bring a glass of water. She was sure Serena was suffering from heat exhaustion.
"It's less than a hundred years old," the manager explained, handing the glass to Serena, who quietly took it in her trembling hand. "I think it's about eighty or ninety years old at most, but it has an extremely unusual quality."
"What ... what's the stone?" asked Serena shakily.
"We believe it is a type of tourmaline. A Siamese one, usually called rubelite tourmaline. It is bluish red, you see?"
"How much is it?" asked Kurt.
"Eighteen thousand ringgit," replied the manager. "It is a good price for such an unusual item."
"Do you like it, my love?" Kurt asked.
Serena seemed to have recovered. "It's a very fascinating piece. But no, it's too expensive. Let's keep looking around."
Once outside, Serena said, "Darling, I really need a rest. I feel faint. Would you mind?"
Back in the hotel room, Kurt asked her again, "Dear, did you like that clasp? You seemed quite taken by it."
Serena shook her head weakly on the crisp pillowcase. She turned her head away, holding back her tears. She so wanted to be alone, so when Kurt said he was going out for a walk she just nodded, pretending to be falling asleep.
Waking several hours later from a dream where she was nearly strangled by a tree snake, Serena saw Kurt standing near the window. The blinds were half-drawn, giving the room an eerie somber feel. He turned as soon as he saw her stir.
"How are you, dear?" he asked, approaching her tenderly.
Serena held out her arms and hugged his waist, relieved that it had only been a dream. Caressing her head, Kurt said, "I've got a surprise for you, dearest one."
He let go of her, walked to the table and returned with a small parcel.
Paralysis gripped her. Her dry throat seized up. As Kurt put the parcel next to her on the crumpled pillow, she felt an unstoppable gloom descending to her stomach.