Gordon and Cecily’s mother had hoped that the whiteness in their blood would supersede the brownness of the skin, that if they waited and served their British masters patiently enough, their European lineage, faint as it was, would be recognized by the white men, that they would be elevated above Malayans of other races. But no matter how hard they scrubbed at their skin to get to the lighter layers, no matter how well they formed their vowels around the English language, no matter how loudly they said their surname, no matter how hard they tried to be the right kind of civilized, they
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