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  He stood, looking disconsolately at the police hat he held in his hands. He’d corrected her attitude and warned her off the investigation. It was the right thing to do, he assured himself, but he’d offended her. That was bad enough; he was well brought up, and pained to think Maryam would think him rude, and he feared he might have lost a valuable ally. He began to leave, dragging his feet as he came down the steps, hoping to be called back and be convinced to accept her help.

  He looked back hopefully while idling on the stairs, but the living room seemed empty, and no one called to him. He trudged slowly through the yard, head down, proud to have asserted his authority, anxious about having spurned such a perfect surrogate mother.

  “Che Osman!” Mamat hailed him before he reached the road. Osman lifted his head hopefully.

  “Good luck!” Mamat smiled at him. “It looks like a tough case, but I know you’ll solve it.”

  Osman’s face fell. “I think I’ve insulted Mak Cik Maryam,” he admitted glumly. “She offered to help, but I, well, you know,” he stammered, “I can’t let her take such chances.”

  Mamat watched him quietly.

  “It could be dangerous,” Osman continued, justifying himself. “I mean, how could I place a Mak Cik in danger, right?”

  “Well, Lebai berjanggut, kambing pun berjanggut juga: a religious teacher has a beard, but so does a goat,” Mamat observed mildly. “She’s a lot more than she seems. I mean, not just a Mak Cik who’s never been outside her kampong. She’s got a lot of know-how. But,” he clapped Osman familiarly on the shoulder, “you’re the professional! I know you’ll do well.”

  Osman sighed deeply, but didn’t walk away.

  “You have work to do, Che Osman,” Mamat assured him. “I won’t keep you any longer.” He turned and strolled back to the house, examining the chickens pecking at the ground near his feet as though he’d never noticed them before.

  “Pak Cik Mamat,” Osman called after a few moments. “Wait a moment.”

  Mamat turned with a bland smile. “Yes?”

  “Perhaps I should talk to Mak Cik Maryam again. I mean, I wouldn’t want her to be angry with me.”

  “Ah, don’t worry, Che Osman,” Mamat assured him. “She won’t be angry—I know she’ll understand. You’re a professional, after all. No, put that thought out of your mind. You have your work to do.”

  Osman began to sweat slightly in the hot sun: he turned his hat around in his hands. “You know, it might be a generous offer. I mean, it might be helpful. She could go and talk to people …”

  “Do you want to come upstairs and talk to her again?” Mamat asked him kindly.

  Osman nodded, more like a schoolboy than ever.

  “Come on,” Mamat invited him up the stairs and sat him back on the porch.

  Maryam was in the kitchen. “He’s back.” Mamat leaned in over the stairs. “Come out front and talk to him.”

  “Why?” Maryam asked innocently. “Hasn’t he got to get moving on this case? Why’s he hanging around here? Siku bersimpai, are his elbows tied together?” She sniffed in irritation.

  “He’s just a kid. He’s afraid to make a mistake. Come on, Yam, go back in. He’s really dying for you to help him.”

  Maryam got up slowly, holding her hip as she did so. “You know, I have a pain right here. I should rest, really, not run around trying to solve other people’s crimes. Especially,” she grumbled, “for ungrateful policemen who can’t even speak Kelantanese.”

  She gave Mamat a sudden grin of pure joy. She’d not only gotten just what she wanted, she was about to be begged to take it. She walked slowly and majestically out to the porch, where Osman sat ready to plead for her help.

  Chapter III

  He just let you take over like that?” Rubiah was incredulous. “I mean, after all, they are the police.”

  “He’s a kid,” Maryam replied, somewhat dismissively. “Believe me – he was happy enough to have some help. He’s in over his head here.”

  Maryam seemed slightly irritated to be questioned on this topic: she’d already made her views on Osman perfectly clear and expected Rubiah to share them on general principle. Rubiah, drawing on vast experience with Maryam, retreated, and silently lit her cigarette, waiting for her orders to be issued: they were sure to come within moments. She was not disappointed.

  “This Ghani had a second wife,” Maryam resumed. “We ought to go to Tawang to see the first wife, at least. It’s going to be awkward asking her about any others.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Rubiah answered briskly. “If you’re going to ask anyone about this, the wives have to be first. Who’s more likely to kill him?”

  “True,” Maryam agreed immediately. “I could see killing Mamat if he took a second wife. Alhamdulillah, I haven’t had to deal with that.”

  “I know, poor thing. There could be others reasons to kill him, I guess, but he’s just a young musician: why else would anyone hate him?”

  Maryam shrugged while studying a plate of Rubiah’s rice cakes before her. Kelantan boasted a profusion of local specialties, and Rubiah was an expert in nearly all of them. They were chewy and sweet and rich, redolent of coconut milk, and most were brightly coloured with hues not found in nature. Maryam chose a fluorescent, layered rectangle topped with coconut cream and chewed it ruminatively. “This is going to be a mess, I can see it now.” She prepared to rise from the porch. “We might as well get going,” she informed Rubiah. “We aren’t solving anything by sitting around here. Go get dressed,” she ordered, “meet me back here. Remember, the people we’re going to see will have to respect us!”

  They chose carefully for their first foray into detecting. They fairly shimmered with gold chains, bangles and earrings, calculating the sheer quantity of precious metal would intimidate their witnesses into speaking the truth. Kelantan women wore much of their wealth in gold jewellery, and its profusion on its owner offered an excellent barometer of the family fortune. Maryam painstakingly fixed her hair into a proper bun on the back of her head, covering it with a chiffon head cloth. She wore a sarong of the best quality Kelantan batik which her older brother Malek had made and a heavily embroidered kebaya. Rubiah broke out all her jewellery, one of her best sarong and a matching over-blouse. They looked like prosperous, solid citizens: pillars of Kelantanese society and arbiters of Kelantanese morals. Just the kind of Mak Cik, Maryam thought, that people would instinctively open up to, as they would to their own mothers.

  Tawang was a small kampong on the way to Bacok, a large seaside town. It lay untidily along a paved road, surrounded by rice fields and palm trees of various types, heavily shaded but forlorn at the end of the dry season, the fields baked hard and dusty. Ghani’s house was well in from the road, smaller than most: unpainted wood with an atap thatched roof. The tiny pounded earth yard was vigorously swept to keep any vegetation well away from the house, banishing the snakes who hid there to a safe distance. The house was in a state of disarray: clothing bundled in the middle of the one large room, tikar-- woven palm sleeping mats-- rolled and stacked in the corner, and the mistress “of the house busily wrapping a few pots and plates in newspaper.

  Maryam called from the bottom of the ladder leading to the house. “Selamat Pagi! Is anyone home?”

  Aisha poked her head out the door, her eyes widening at the spectacle below. “Mak Cik!” she stammered. “What are you doing here?” Then, remembering her manners, she scrambled to her feet.

  “Come in, come in, don’t stand out there in the sun. Please.” She ushered them into her small house and cast frantically around for a chair; the small couch was wrapped in newspaper and lay on its side, ready to be taken away.

  “No, please, don’t trouble yourself, Cik,” Rubiah soothed, “We will sit here,” and they lowered themselves to the floor, tucking their feet under their sarong, offering the fruit they’d brought with them. “We don’t want to interrupt you…”

  “No, no, not at all,” Aisha bent over her tiny stove in t
he corner, already making coffee for them. “All I have out is coffee,” she apologized. “The tea’s already packed.”

  “Coffee’s even better,” Maryam assured her. “Going somewhere?” she then asked, craning her neck to take in all of the room.

  “Home to my parents,” she explained, her face hidden by her hair as she bent over the cups on a tray. She was slightly built, with an expressive face and large eyes. “I can’t manage here on my own with two kids. My parents live close by, and they have room for me. I’m lucky.” She came back to them with cups of coffee on a worn wooden tray and their fruit set nicely into a large dish. “My kids are with Ghani’s parents right now; my mother-in-law’s got them so I can pack. My brothers are coming to get my stuff later.” She waved her hands over their cups. “Please, drink.”

  They sipped their coffee slowly. “You know, Cik Aisha,” Maryam began slowly; “we’re helping the police, asking questions. Helping to find out what … happened. After all,” Maryam picked up steam, “It happened at my house, at my performance, so to speak,”

  “Yes, how awful,” Aisha murmured.

  Maryam was stunned. Was Aisha really commiserating with her because the performance was ruined, when it was her husband who was killed? Rather cold, Maryam thought, shooting Rubiah a penetrating look. Or was that just a strange overabundance of courtesy?

  “Yes, indeed,” she continued, trying to understand Aisha’s expression, which was blank. “So anyway, I feel as though it’s my business too, and well, it’s sometimes difficult for the police to talk to people, so I thought Mak Cik Rubiah and I could help. We too want to find whoever would do such a thing, such a vicious thing, to your husband.”

  “So you’re working for the police,” Aisha said slowly.

  “Yes,” Rubiah jumped in, “unless you’d prefer to talk to them, and, of course, you could …”

  “No, not really,” Aisha said, almost dreamily. “It’s easier to talk to you, Mak Cik.” She folded her hands in her lap and waited.

  Maryam took a fortifying sip of coffee and steeled herself for tears. She composed herself to look as sympathetic as possible. “How long have you been married, Cik Aisha?” she began gently.

  “Five years. I have two kids, four and two.”

  “And you’re from here too, aren’t you?”

  “From Tawang? Yes, of course. I’ve known Ghani since we were little.”

  Maryam nodded, encouraging her to talk about her life.

  “Well, Ghani started playing with Pak Cik Dollah since he was small—he always loved playing the drums. He didn’t really go to school, me neither. But I can read and so could he. His father was worried about him travelling around and getting into trouble, and Pak Cik ‘Lah promised to watch out for him. He’s been everywhere,” Aisha was picking up speed now, speaking more fluently, and had stopped staring at her lap and was now talking to both women directly, “Patani, Kuala Krai,” here she grimaced, “Bacok, all over. Pak Cik Lah is very popular, the most popular dalang in Kelantan. You knew that, right?” She smiled, and Maryam smiled back.

  “Anyway, I was around sixteen and Ghani’s parents came to mine and asked for me, to marry him. I always liked him. He’s very handsome; used to be.” She rose and pulled a frame wrapped in newspaper out of a bag and pulled the paper off. “This is when we got married,” she explained to the women. “See?”

  Maryam and Rubiah leaned over a color photo of two teenagers in their wedding finery: both wearing light blue kain songket, which to Maryam’s expert eye was certainly of acceptable, if not top, quality. They were both solemn-faced, as Malay wedding portraits always were, and they could see here that Ghani had been remarkably good looking: his cheekbones were high and his nose chiseled. Aisha too looked fetching, with large eyes and a round face, but the eye was drawn to him.

  “You look lovely here,” Rubiah said sweetly. “Oh, he’s handsome, yes, but look at you!”

  Aisha was self-deprecating, “Thanks, but I’m just saying, he was always noticed, and it’s gotten him into a world of trouble now.”

  Rubiah cocked her head. “Now?”

  “Yes, now!” Aisha’s cheeks were turning red. “He just married a second wife, and look what she’s done!” Rubiah looked shocked and Aisha continued. “Don’t you think she killed him when he told her to go back to Kuala Krai? She knew she lost. She came here, you know. She just showed up one night, it was just a week ago, can you believe it? Just showed up here and dropped her stuff on the floor here and said ‘Here I am!’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked her, and she said “Oh, I married Ghani, didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t tell me. Why should I believe you?’ I thought, ‘Now he’s gotten himself into trouble, and it won’t be so easy to get rid of her.’ That’s what I thought. And it’s been even more trouble than I thought it would be: he’s dead, and she killed him.”

  Aisha sat back on her heels and looked satisfied; she’d said what she wanted to say. Maryam had laid a pack of cigarettes out on the floor and gestured for Aisha to take one. They all lit up, and Aisha tipped her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling.

  “Ghani was weak, you know,” she said philosophically, “but I didn’t expect anything like this. She must have been at him. He couldn’t afford a second wife: we can barely make it as it is, even with him working in Singapore. But this woman wanted a husband. I think she just wanted to get out of Kuala Krai. It’s a dump—so far away in the jungle and all that.”

  Maryam would not have said it so bluntly, but she shared the sentiment. Kuala Krai was far from Kota Bharu and the coast, deep in the rainforests of central Malaysia, and though Maryam had never been there (why would she– there wasn’t anything to see) she imagined it as a small, gloomy place, hemmed in by overgrowth and claustrophobic in the extreme. She could easily believe someone who lived there would be desperate to leave and clutch at any straw to free herself from the jungle vines dragging her back to the ulu.

  “I think she killed him after she realized he wasn’t going to let her stay here,” Aisha continued.

  “Where did she stay when she was here?” Maryam interrupted. “I mean here in Tawang?”

  Aisha thought for a moment, and shrugged. “Not here. I don’t know. Maybe in someone’s house?”

  “Any ideas?” Rubiah asked her. “I think we want to track down where she was.”

  Aisha narrowed her eyes, whether in thought or suspicion, Maryam couldn’t tell. “I don’t know,” she repeated, gritting her teeth slightly.

  Maryam nodded, and backed off her questions. She would visit Ghani’s mother, and it would be much easier to talk about this with his mother than his wife.

  “Did you ever go and see him when he played?” Maryam asked gently.

  Aisha nodded without speaking. “Before the kids were born, I went all the time. Not so much now: I’d need to find someone to take care of them or take them with me. It’s such a big job, you know.”

  “Did you go to my house when he was playing? It’s not so far away.”

  “Did I kill him, you mean?” Aisha snapped. “No. He was my husband. And I didn’t visit them when they played at your house.” She looked as though she might begin to cry. “I never thought it would be like this. I never thought he’d actually marry someone else. I never thought he’d even go around with anyone else. I thought he loved me.”

  Maryam patted her arm and smiled sympathetically. Mamat, her own husband, was a very handsome man, and even now, with his hair graying and his face ageing, she still thought him well worth noticing. She saw other women’s eyes follow Mamat as they walked through the market, but she believed he wouldn’t betray her. Still, all women said a man was only as faithful as his opportunities, and there was little collective confidence in any husband’s ability to resist an intriguing offer. How would she feel if he took another wife? Would she kill him? She really didn’t know. If Aisha had killed Ghani, Maryam conceded she had excellent reason.

  “I’
m sure he did love you,” Maryam said quietly. “You know, men are so … unthinking sometimes. It doesn’t mean that much to them.”

  Rubiah nodded sagely, and she and Maryam began murmuring their thanks and their preliminary leave-taking phrases, when Aisha unexpected began to cry.

  “Just a week ago he was still here, and I didn’t know anything about this wife,” she nearly spit the word, “from Kuala Krai! Everything was fine! Now I know he betrayed me and he’s dead and I’m a widow with two children living at my parents’ house. I can’t believe it. My whole life is ruined because of her. She married him and then she killed him, and I’m the one suffering for it.”

  She buried her head in her hands and jerked her shoulders away from their comforting hands. “No, just leave. I’m sorry to be rude,” she said, wiping her eyes as Maryam and Rubiah tried to talk to her, to tell her it would be all right. “I just can’t talk anymore. I’m sorry, very sorry. Another time.”

  She tried to smile as they left and squatted in her doorway, knuckling her eyes. “Please forgive me,” she called after them.

  Chapter IV

  “Alamak! I feel so sorry for her,” Maryam said softly, leaning towards Rubiah’s ear.

  “Oh, I know,” Rubiah agreed passionately. “That poor girl. What she’s going through, I don’t even want to imagine. Kasehan.”

  “I don’t know how I’d deal with it myself. She’s being so brave,” Maryam marveled. “You’ve got to admire it. Respect it. Unless of course …” She paused, and stopped walking. “Unless, of course, she killed him herself. Which I wouldn’t blame her for, I can tell you that.” She resumed walking towards the main road, stepping around a variety of fruit trees planted at cautious distances from the houses: banana, papaya, and mango. “I’d feel sorry for her if she did it. I would.”

  “Would you keep it from the police?” Rubiah pressed her. “Just tell him you couldn’t find anything?”

  “Are you suggesting it?” Maryam asked her, avoiding her eyes.