Shih-Li Kow
mary anne
When I Was Taken
This is about me, and I would like to start the story like a movie, with the opening credits rolling in. MARY ANNE’S STORY in capital letters. Where to start, however, is tricky. I guess a logical place would be the day I found out I was to leave behind everything that was familiar to me, which wasn’t much: St. Mary’s Home for Girls and the Methodist Girls’ Primary School, both in Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur.
I know being logical is boring. Logic is for adults and children who are old before their time, but if I don’t keep things simple, I’ll have to introduce you to an older version of me and then confuse you with flashback sequences which will take away any fun you might have imagining me growing up. You adults always need a kick-start when it comes to using your imagination. I’ll take a logical-chronological approach, and if you need to imagine anything, think quirky, random, and colorful. That’s the kind of movie I want this to be.
Imagine an eleven-year-old girl. You do not need to dream up an eight-year-old, or five, or three, or whatever. Just eleven, and hold that thought in your head for a while, like a knot at the end of your thread before you start sewing. When I was eleven, Sister Tan summoned me to her office one afternoon, with instructions to comb my hair before I came, and to bring my school bag. I did both and went to the office. I heaved my schoolbag onto Sister Tan’s table, and she patted the air with her hand, indicating to me to sit in a chair by the door. The visitors smiled at me. They were a man and a woman, not so young, not so old. They sat in the chairs normally sat in by people who came to write donation cheques to St. Mary’s.
“Yes, yes,” Sister Tan kept saying. “We’ve been very fortunate. God has been with us in our efforts.” Sister Tan was almost pretty. Her hair fluffed up nicely after a wash and she had this bohemian-chic fashion thing going. She wore kurtas, long skirts, and shiny bangles that she bought from the Indian shops in Brickfields. Almost pretty. She had two lines on either side of her mouth that cut deep into her chin. That, and the red lipstick she liked to use, made her look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. She kept smiling and smiling throughout, as though her face would split open and her jaw fall off.
I sat in the chair against the wall facing Sister Tan behind the visitors. Sister Tan rummaged through my school bag. I hated that. My bag was one of my few private possessions at the home. With thirty of us in St. Mary’s, there wasn’t much room for stashing things away: three to a wardrobe, four to a study desk, eight to a room, thirty to a home; that was how we lived. The crowding wasn’t too bad, just that it was near impossible to hide a journal or a dumb sewing project you didn’t want anyone to see. I wanted to start a campaign for all girls to have a personal locker, but realized Sister Tan wouldn’t like that, being told what to do. So I kept private things between the pages of my schoolbooks in my bag, and in spaces where the lining had ripped.
Sister Tan pulled out pieces of my homework, including an unfinished craft assignment that was a woven-paper book cover. She waved it in the air as though it were a masterpiece. I was embarrassed. It was not fancy like the ones the rich girls in class made, with ten different types of paper, all in pretty colors.
* * *
“She plays chess too,” Sister Tan said, although I didn’t know why that mattered. The only other time she commented on it was when she watched me playing against myself once. She had asked, “Is that chess or another one of your made-up games?”
“Chess. The white is three moves from taking the black queen,” I had replied, thinking that she was pretty slow not to see that it wasn’t even chess and that I was simply playing checkers on a chessboard.
The woman twisted in her seat to smile at me, “Good, she can play with Ming; I don’t play chess.” Ming was a dog’s name. If I had a Pekingese, I would name it Ming and teach it to play Chinese chess. The woman looked like someone strong enough to walk a big dog like a Labrador or a Chow-Chow. I liked Beagles. I thought their ears were cute, like silk socks.
“Say goodbye, Mary Anne,” Sister Tan said when they stood up to leave. The man named Ming winked at me. I frowned and looked at the floor. I decided that maybe I’d like him because of that wink, even if he had the name for a dog.
“Goodbye,” I said, and ‘Pretty Polly wants a cracker,’ I thought to myself.
The plan was that they would come back in a week to take me away to live with them. They would be my sponsors, Sister Tan said. She did not say parents. Nobody said the words ‘father’ or ‘mother.’ Sponsors, she said, as though I was Nicol David, the squash player, who had Milo as her sponsor. I wondered what skills she told them I had that they were willing to sponsor me. I was certainly not likely to appear on any billboard. I had not made the school prefect selection. I couldn’t even clear the high-jump bar on Sports Day to score a point for my house.
Sister Tan hugged me hard and said that I was a lucky, lucky girl. I should give thanks to God that they were such wonderful people.
“Imagine that, Mary Anne,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Out of the blue, just when I was about to give up on you. You should be so happy. Out of the blue.”
When I left St. Mary’s, no one adopted me legally. There were no papers to sign me over to my new owners. Some dogs had pedigree certificates. I did not. I was just a St. Mary’s girl on whom Sister Tan was about to give up. Therefore, I could not help being disappointed that nothing special marked this important, maybe even life-changing, event. I had expected, stupidly, to have a nice day out to get acquainted with my new owners, who I would then duly charm, in a newish dress that I would wear to make a good impression, and excitedly whisper about it with the girls in our dorm. Nothing, zilch, and no one showed any interest except Mary Beth, my best friend. I guess it was fair. I never cared much about what happened to any of the other girls either. I was nice to them and they were polite back, but I never huddled with them over magazines, sat giggling about which boy band lead singer was to die for, or traded information about who said what in school. They were not sad to see me go, maybe a little jealous or even relieved, but not sad.
Nobody asked me if I wanted to go. If you were chosen, you went. Always. That was how it worked. Sister Tan would tell a girl to go and that was that. Usually, the smaller ones went more easily.
I was more adoptable than Mary Beth. She was older and at fifteen, and with dark skin, pimples and frizzy hair, her chances of adoption were practically zero. I was prettier too. Mary Beth fancied herself as my special sister. She watched out for me, made sure I got my share of snacks and checked that no one messed with my things. Sometimes, she bossed me around too, but I let her. She was as real a sister to me as I would ever have.
Mary Beth was going to remain at the home, but she could only stay at St. Mary’s until she was eighteen. After that, she would have to move out. St. Mary’s would help her with an allowance for six months after her eighteenth birthday, and after that she was on her own. Those were the rules.
She tried so hard not to cry, poor Mary Beth. The card she made for me said, “I love you” and that put a lump in my throat because we did not hear that often at St. Mary’s. We were familiar with all sorts of love. Everyone loved us, including God and Jesus, but not an “I.”
Mary Beth had already been ‘abandoned’ several times. Before she turned her attention on me, she kept a four-year-old under her wing for two years until a couple from Subang adopted her. She had been tight with another older girl who ran away without telling anyone. I worried that Mary Beth might not recover from my leaving.
My last week at St. Mary’s passed strangely. The teachers in school asked me where my new home would be, but I was not able to tell them because I didn’t know. From the looks on their faces, I knew they felt sorry for me although they congratulated me loudly. I wanted to say goodbye to my favorite teacher, but did not because she didn’t know she was my favorite teacher, or that I had a girl crush on her.
I threw away all the bits of paper between my books, where I had written secrets about my mother, because I had to return them on my last day at school. I carried my empty bag to the van that sends us back to St. Mary’s, and its strange lightness made me cry. Kids gathered around the school gate as on any other day. I saw a few girls from my class laughing together. They did not care that I was not going to be in class on Monday. In the end, I said no goodbyes.
I asked for a map of Malaysia as a farewell present from Sister Tan. Although she looked at me rather strangely, she found me an old school atlas. She also gave me a rosary with a wooden cross. I didn’t have much else except for my shoes and clothes, and a snow globe I received in the Christmas-present distribution last year. What I really wanted to bring along was Mary Fairy, the kitten I had been feeding with my leftovers, but I didn’t dare ask.
In case you are wondering about all these Marys, there won’t be any more joining the story. There will only be me, Mary Anne, Mary Beth, my best friend, and Mary Fairy the cat. If you had been paying attention, you’d have figured out that the names were more than a coincidence, and you may have arrived at the conclusion that, maybe, everyone in St. Mary’s was Mary something. You would be quite right. Everyone was, except Sister Tan, whose name was Elizabeth.
* * *
When Mary Beth and I parted, it was with the awkwardness of strangers. “Please feed Mary Fairy,” I said. Our hugs and tears seemed artificial. Sister Tan was wet-eyed and kept her arm around Mary Beth who was crying like a squeezed wet sponge. Some of the other girls came to stare. I felt shy, with all the attention on me, and wished we would leave, to get it over with. I planted a smile on my face and waved madly at all the other Marys: Mary Claire, Jane, Lou through to Yvette, and Zsa Zsa.
I sat in the back of the car and as we pulled away, I did not look back. Not even once. I did keep my eye on the car’s side mirror though, and wished what they had said in Jurassic Park was true, that objects in the mirror were closer than they appeared. Or, was it larger? Whatever. I can’t remember much, except that it was an awesome movie.
The Ride Home
The car smelt of plastic and chemicals. I hugged my bag as I watched the signboards go by. Between Kuala Lumpur and Bukit Beruntung, the woman tried to make conversation.
“Are you okay back there, Mary Anne?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you, Missus,” I replied.
“Is your seatbelt fastened?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve made up a room for you. You’ll have your own bathroom and study table. You can decorate it in any way you like.”
I couldn’t reply because my voice box was swollen and had jammed in my throat. Mary Beth and I had often daydreamed of having our own room, with purple and pink cushions, a full-length mirror, a rug for Mary Fairy to curl on, and a radio, but I couldn’t bear to think about that.
“Would you like something to munch? I have some potato chips here, and some nuts.” She shoved me a tall can of Pringles through the gap between the front seats. Cheesy cheese flavor, it said. Pringles and junk food were major treats at St. Mary’s. Mary Beth’s favorite flavor was sour cream and onion. Mine was barbecue.
I shook my head, but the can didn’t go away. She couldn’t see me because I was sitting behind her. I forced myself to say, “No, thank you, Missus.”
“You want any?” she jabbed her husband. He grunted and replied, “Sodium.”
We were going north, and north. We drove past Tanjung Malim, Slim River, Bidor, Tapah towards Ipoh. When we drove past Tapah, I felt tiny, as though I was leaving the country. I had been to Cameron Highlands once, and we had taken this route and exited at Tapah. That was the furthest I had been outside Kuala Lumpur.
I realized that I had been clutching my bag for too long and I put it down next to me to take out the atlas that Sister Tan had given me. I unzipped my bag inch by inch as quietly as I could. I did not want to be spoken to.
I opened the atlas, but it was too dark to read. I wondered how far north we would go. People assumed that I knew where I was going but no one had told me. Raindrops on the window made trails across the glass, and I watched them race one another and join up to become bigger blobs. One of the trails spelt out my name. Another made an outline of a cat. I tried to lick my tears, but my tongue was not long enough. I had been trying forever to lick the bottom of my chin. I tried again. I missed the smell of my pillow.
I could see the top of Missus’ head, which was lolling to the window side. I looked at Mister and his quarter profile. He seemed unsteady, like an inflated dummy at the wheel. I wanted to say something but didn’t know what. The car was dark and warm, although it was pouring outside. I shifted a little so I could look in the rear-view mirror. His eyelids drooped.
I put my knee against the back of Missus’ seat, shaking it a little. She didn’t respond. I shook her seat harder. Rain streaked the windshield, and the wipers whipped back and forth like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. I saw Mister’s chin moving to his chest.
* * *
Missus, may I have some Pringles please, I rehearsed in my head. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth, “Missus, may I have some Pring . . .” but it was too late. The steering wheel drifted to the right and then to the left. Our headlights picked up a cow. It was reddish brown, had all loose skin and spindly legs. We drove straight into it. Our car turned on its side, skated against the divider and flipped again. I felt like a dice, tossed around in the car.
That was how it happened. We flew a hundred feet into the air, and, through the back window, I saw the cow smiling at me from below us, still standing, its tail swishing. A giant angel with white wings had her white arms around our car and we landed softly, gently like a feather, in a ditch on the opposite side of the highway. Our car bounced a little on its tires, the four doors flapped open and then closed. The angel’s cheeks were pink, and she wore a giant toga made of grey clouds spewing rain. The cow was caught on her dress, brown and small, and Missus was riding it somehow like a bronco cowgirl. I will never forget how it happened, although I became unconscious before I could scream.
The seatbelt cut into my chest, and my neck and head hurt. Potato chips and bits of glass were all over me. Mister and Missus rested on their balloon clouds like huge pillows. Someone honked, loud and urgent, the sound surrounding us. Headlights came rushing at me, too fast to stop and too bright for me to see. Then the door on my side flew off, ripped from its hinges. I wanted to open my mouth to scream, but realized it was already open.
We never made it home that night. I didn’t even know where home was.
Broken
I woke up to the sound of people talking, conversations bubbling, like in school during break. My mouth was dry and my tongue felt furry with gunk. When I peeled my gummy eyelids apart, I saw people crowding the space at the foot of my bed. I thought there were fifty of them, but later, when I knew their names and counted them, there were twelve. One was sobbing, another handed a box of tissues around. A man was talking on the phone. The fat one peered at me through spectacles that made her look bug-eyed.
“Shhh, shhh, the girl is awake,” the fat one said. “Hello, girl.” Another one said, “Hello, what’s your name?”
“Are you hungry? I have some chicken porridge. How about some Milo?”
“Are you okay? Pain or not? You poor thing.”
The fat one patted my hand. Someone else stroked my forehead.
“She’s so skinny.”
“Not much to eat at the orphanage. Would you like some chicken porridge?”
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Do you think she remembers? Do you remember Assunta, girl?
Should we tell her who we are?”
“Remember what? Her name or the accident?”
“Shhh, shhh, don’t ask her these things now. Don’t bring up the accident. How can you be such an idiot?”
The one who had asked me about Assunta started to cry. Someone embraced her, and the two women wept. Another one patted my shoulder and sent a bolt of pain shooting down from my back to my legs that made me cry out.
I looked around, expecting to see the other beds of a St. Mary’s dormitory and some of the smaller girls sitting cross-legged in the upper bunk beds, doing their homework. I looked up at the ceiling, searching for the familiar water stain that I would stare at when I was bored. I looked for the school timetables pasted on our cupboard doors and the jumble of things in the corner where Mary Fairy slept. Instead, I registered white lights, the green sheet over me, the metal bars at the side of my bed, a clinical smell, and the strange gown I was wearing. I realized that I was in a hospital, but I saw no nurses or doctors. I wanted a figure of authority. I wished for a policeman or a teacher, not these jabbering women.
Then I saw the metal pole with a plastic pouch of liquid hooked onto it. I followed the tube leading to my hand and saw the strip of plaster that held the needle going under my skin. I hated needles. Someone had poked a giant one into me while I was out cold, and it was still there. The scream that began in the car before everything went black started welling up again.
One of the women put a Chinese spoon under my nose, “Porridge, girl?” I turned my face away and saw a leg suspended in a cast. It wasn’t my leg. I couldn’t find my leg. A scream rose in my throat like vomit. I wanted my mommy, but I had no mommy. My beautiful mother was in Hollywood making movies. Instead, I screamed, “I want Mary Beth!” and bawled my eyes out. I thrashed my good leg around, the one without the cast, and kicked off the sheets, but I kept my right arm as still as a rock. I did not want that needle to travel up my vein like a slow arrow and pierce my bubble of a heart, for all the blood to run out. I would die. I would surely die.
I screamed and screamed until two nurses came running. They scolded me for the noise I was making, which made me cry some more, although less loudly. They scolded the people for making me cry and shooed them out of the ward.
After they left, I saw other children in the ward. On my left was a tiny bald girl with her mother. She was very pale, but she had a mother. “I want Mary Beth,” I sobbed. I closed my eyes and faded out again, certain I was dying.
I did not die. It was very hard trying to die. The nurses brought plastic cups of Milo with cream crackers every morning, set down trays with rice twice a day on the side table that wheeled over my bed. They cranked my bed upright and told me to eat. I couldn’t eat with the bad taste in my mouth and the pain every time they moved me. They told me to look at the girl in the next bed and stop behaving like a baby. They said a few broken bones was nothing to worry about and did not mention the bandages around my head.
One morning, the girl in the next bed was gone. After my usual drill of refusing to eat, one angry nurse said to me, “You’d better eat, you stupid girl, or you’ll end up like her. She is dead. She died last night. The people in your car are also dead. You don’t know how lucky you are.”
The empty bed terrified me after that. At night, when the nurses switched off the lights, the bed that had held the dead bald girl with tubes in her nose made me stiff with fear. I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid that I would see her by my bedside, staring at me with eyes without whites, like the child ghost in a movie I had seen. I knew that the eerie wailing sounds outside the windows at night were from cats mating, but knowing didn’t help. I forgot my night-time prayers I had learnt at St. Mary’s. When morning came, I could barely look at food, much less eat.
I became a stranger to myself. By day, I ignored everything that anyone said to me. The people I didn’t know who came to visit me stopped registering. The needle stopped frightening me because the night brought bigger terrors. I endured the injections, the aches that came and went, and the pain that spiked when they moved or cleaned me. I also stopped talking and crying. By night, I steeled myself against the terrors that didn’t go away even when a boy who coughed all day and all night occupied the bed next to me.
I imagined vengeful night-time beings that did not just stand by my bedside. Slipping in through open windows and cracks under doors, they crouched over me, suffocated me, sucked the blood from my toes and pulled me along the path of the dead bald girl, and the dead Mister and Missus. Groups of pumpkin-faced children skipped about at night choosing their victims.
Under my blanket, my heartbeat pounded in my ears to the rhythm of dead people marching. I agonized over not speaking up in the car sooner. I could have stopped us from crashing and my sin of silence had killed two people because I took too long to ask for Pringles.
I stopped thinking that I was dying. Abandoned by my angels, I was being punished alive by demons and devils. The hospital blanket could not protect me.
Shih-Li Kow is a Malaysian writer born in 1968. She holds a degree in chemical engineering and resides in Kuala Lumpur with her son and extended family. The French translation of The Sum of Our Follies won the 2018 Prix du Premier Roman Etranger (First novel prize, in a foreign language) in November. Her earlier book Ripples was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the First Book category in 2009.