The Rice Mother Read Online Free PDF

shadows their black headdresses threw over their faces. The headdresses were kept in place with red handkerchiefs tied under their chins. On top of the black headdress and red handkerchiefs they wore enormous straw hats. Their sleeves they wore longer than their hands. Not a tiny strip of flesh was exposed. Unhurriedly they approached.
    Urgently, I shook Ayah awake.
    “What? What is it?” he muddled, bewildered into sudden wakefulness.
    “Look!” I cried fearfully, pointing at the obvious menace in the black procession ahead.
    His eyes followed my finger. “Oh, them,” he sighed, relieved, and settled back sleepily. “They are dulang washers. They work in the tin mines and sieve tin ore in large trays at mining sites. Underneath all that black material are some of the fairest Chinese girls you will ever meet. I have seen them at night. They look like dolls in their tight cheongsams.”
    The slender trail wheeled past. Silent. Harmless.
    I was intrigued. They wrapped themselves like the mummies in an Egyptian pyramid so they could remain rice-powder white. We rattled along on roads meant for carts, passed small towns and lazy villages. Once Bilal slowed down for two small wild pigs that snorted and scurried across the road in a moment of curiosity. Brown children, naked, ran to the side of the road to watch us and wave enthusiastically. Sweating freely inside six yards of material anchored on a firmly tied white petticoat, I loved them instantly. Inside me a barefoot girl longed to get out. Even now I think I remember those velvet-eyed children best. Midafternoon we passed a Chinese temple with granite pillars, a deep red interior, and intricately carved stone dragons resting on its ceramic roof.
    At length we reached Kuantan, our final destination. Bilal drove into a potholed road strewn with sharp white stones, a cul-de-sac of sorts. The road encircled an untidy clump of wild bushes, a bamboo grove, and a rather splendid rambutan tree, and served the five dwellings built around it. The house closest to the main road was the grandest, obviously mine. Under a shady angsana tree nestled a table and chairs made of stone. It was beautiful, and I loved it. Inside the coolness of its thick walls I imagined soft-footed servants. I noticed red Chinese lanterns hanging by the door and pondered the reason for them.
    Bilal slowed the car down next to the big, black gates, but as I prepared to get out, two savage Alsatian dogs rushed out to the gate and barked at us. Then, having negotiated a large pothole, Bilal drove on, right past the beautiful house. A small brown face at one of the windows watched us pass with avid curiosity. I turned toward my husband, but he deliberately avoided my searching gaze and stared ahead. Confused, I turned away. We bumped along the terrible road, and then I noticed that all the other houses were poor and wooden. Bilal stopped outside a small house on low stilts.
    My husband got out, and I clambered out in my brown slippers, a crumpled, dazed little person. The bags came out of the trunk of the car, and Bilal, who was not my husband’s trusted driver at all, bade us good-bye and drove off. Ayah fished around in his baggy trousers and produced a set of keys. He smiled into my reduced face. “Welcome home, my dear, dear wife,” he said softly.
    “But . . . but . . .”
    But he was gone, striding ahead on those ridiculously long legs of his. The wooden door of the wooden house opened and swallowed him whole. For a moment I could only stare at the dusky interior of the house, then I followed slowly. At the first step I stopped. Mother had been tricked. The thought was heavy. My husband was not rich, he was poor. Pani had duped us. I was all alone in a strange country with a man who was not what he was supposed to be. I had no money of my own, didn’t speak a word of English or the local language, and hadn’t the least idea of how to return home. The blood ran very fast in my veins. I could have