The Night Tiger

by Yangsze Choo

He’s completely forgotten about the monthly party, a much anticipated social event where people dine on canned food sent from Europe—peas, lobster, tongue—drink too much, and congratulate each other on having a wonderful time out in the Colonies. It’s his turn to host, and he must remind Ah Long to lay in extra wine and spirits and discuss the menu. William would rather eat fresh local food than something that has died and been sealed in a can, like a metal coffin.

Was that love or stupidity? But maybe that was just the hardheaded part of me, calculating my chances of survival. I wouldn’t give myself away to some man, become one of his possessions. Not without the economic assurance of a wedding ring. Even then, from what I could see of my mother’s choice, perhaps the price was too high.

What made someone good-looking? Was it the symmetry of features, or the sharp shadows of his brows and lashes, the mobile curl of his mouth? In the very center of his eyes, so much darker than mine, I could see a tiny light, a gleam that sparked.

For Cantonese speakers, thirteen was a good number. Sup sam sounded a lot like the words sut sang, which meant “always survive.” Fourteen, on the other hand, was terrible because it sounded like “certain death.”

Long, detailed descriptions of killing deer and wild boar, creeping silently from behind them. The sudden rush, choking the throat by biting. Wrenching the head to break the neck.

Serve from the left, remove plates from the right—

The infatuation that had sustained me for so many years had faded, leaving a vague sense of confusion and guilt.

By Chinese counting, which added a year, my mother was forty-two and approaching the most dangerous age in life, since the homophone for forty-two sounded like “you die.” My heart plummeted.

“No, though he was from a very wealthy family. They wanted her to become a ghost bride.” “What happened to her?” “She ran away with someone else. But years later when my uncle was a very old man, he said she came back to visit him. And strangely enough, she looked exactly the same as when she left home at eighteen. Though that’s another story.

“Because the dead don’t belong in this world. Their story has ended—they have to move on. You can’t be obeying them from beyond the grave.”

You had to watch out for the silent ones; they could be troublesome in a sneaky way.

There are too many stories about vengeful women who come in the night, tales of the pontianak, a woman who dies in childbirth or pregnancy and who drinks men’s blood. She looks like a beautiful lady with long hair, and can only be tamed by stopping up the hole at the nape of her neck with an iron nail. Or is it by cutting off her own long nails and stuffing them into the hole in her neck? Ren isn’t sure, except that she’s very angry with men. There are other creatures, too, child spirits like the toyol, used as a sorceror’s servant to steal and run errands.

Chinese people have an aversion to suddenly waking people from sleep, in case the soul separates from the body. I

fingers?” “Well, the Malays say that each finger has a personality: the thumb is the mother finger, or ibu jari. Then you have the index finger, jari telunjuk, which points the way. The third finger, jari hantu, is the ghost finger, because it’s longer than the others. The fourth one is the ring finger; in some dialects they call it the nameless one. The little finger is the clever one.”

Rain in the tropics is like a bathtub upended in the sky. The rain falls so hard and fast that in a few minutes you’re soaked to the skin. There’s no time to think, only the overwhelming need to run under shelter. And run we did.