'Peniti Ronce'

'Peniti Ronce'

By Dewi Anggraeni

Part 2 of 2

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
rainforest, 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.