Haunted Envelopes

The Undertaker

His father was a Taoist priest. By the time he was seven years old, he knew by heart many of the chants, prayers, and procedures.

His parents couldn't afford private Chinese school, so they sent him to a Catholic school. He was familiar with the Bible, the psalms, and the songs of that faith, and he saw them as compatible and even complimentary. Sundays were split halfway between school church in the morning and some kampong temple at night.

When he graduated, he was approached by a Christian church, with an offer for conversion, and a post as their new pastor. His answer was simple: I have about 4000 rm per month of bills. If you pay me that plus a bit of spending money, I'll pray to whatever god you want.

His father passed, and by his thirtieth birthday, he had taken over and greatly expanded the business becoming an undertaker of some regional renown, capable of presiding over a variety of ceremonies, accommodating the wishes of a poor Hakka farming family steeped in ancient traditions, and then driving across town to tackle a powerful Cantonese business dynasty who wants a sleek modern ceremony.

He had a girlfriend. And another. He employed dozens of people, and was proud to employ all the faces of Malaysia: from old Indian friends of his dad, his partner who was also Indian, to young Malay kids, and every shade of Chinese in between.

His visits to temples and retirement homes were met with respect from the old and young alike.

During one such visit, he was approached by an old Hokkien lady. They did their usual small talk, but he could tell this was different: she was holding money. He was too polite to ask about the money, but he didn’t have to wait long.

She asked him if he was familiar with a certain square in Melaka, at the edge of a kampong, with a tree, and a famous chicken rice stall nearby, one that had been open for generations.

He knew it; she probably didn't know that it had become a bit of a local dumping spot, and he didn't want to tell her. He could tell from the uncharacteristic focus in her cloudy eyes that she had a picture in her mind of the square, in happier, cleaner times.

With shaky, arthritic, cold hands she handed him an ang pao, as old and wrinkled as she was. Her hands bowed with the weight of the money, like it was a gold brick.

She told him of a place there. In a disused corner of the square. He could picture it. She asked him for a simple, strong coffin. He gently opened the frayed envelope. They weren’t fifties. It was crinkled and worn fives and tens. The old notes. Frankly, he wasn’t even sure the banks still took these ones. There had been two design changes since these were printed out. Even if the bank would take them, it was nowhere near enough for a coffin.

He put the notes in his shirt pocket. It was more than enough, he told her.

She held his gaze. “Swear you bury me in that spot.”

He told her he would see it done. “And m sai lah fuss. Gno m’oi lah. Nobody to fuss anyway. I alone. No robe, no ceremony. Simply dig, bury, and leave wan. In peace. Happy life, happy after. Simple, like me wan.”
He swore it would be done.  She settled into her chair, unburdened and exhausted.

A few months later she died. The hospital called him. It was late. Too late to do anything that day. He texted his backhoe guy, and arranged all the details to bury her the next day.

When he showed up at the hospital, there was a young Chinese couple already, both on their cell phones, both shouting, he could picture two different people cowering in two different offices.

It was the lady who addressed him, without ending her call. She was not Melakan, at least not anymore. It was her auntie who had died, and she came as soon as she heard to arrange the funeral. He tried to talk with her, but when she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to on her phone. There was no listening. This lady didn’t listen. No time.

He rarely got stressed. He had seen babies die, held them as they cooled, he’d presided over the miscarriage ceremonies, chanted over cancer stricken young men; simply being with these two stressed him out.

After a few minutes, the husband rose and left, never glancing at him, never putting down his phone. The lady hung up. She handed him a cold crisp ang pao. This time, the ang pao was was brand new. He guessed that inside, there would be brand new 100 rm bills. There was a geometric precision to the envelope and its contents. She said her assistant would be in touch.

When she left the room, lightness returned. He breathed. It felt like his first in ages.

When he got back to his truck, he sunk into his seat. The aircon blasted him. He closed his eyes and lit a cigarette. He hadn’t even exhaled when his phone rang. Selangor number. It was her assistant. She was waiting for him, in his office.

After the call, he was loathe to leave. He lit another cigarette with the dregs of the first, and tried to sink even further into the driver seat. He tried to turn up the aircon, but it was already on full blast. The weight of the ang pao in his shirt pocket was suffocating him. He got it out, and buried it in his satchel.

By the time he got to his office, it was over an hour later. The assistant was still there though. She snapped her phone cover shut when he opened his door, and approached.

She skipped any formalities, and went into a detailed order. It was to be a cremation. And she was to be interred at the temple of Kuan Yin on Harmony Street. He knew the one. It was all marble and pomp. She wanted a gold-trimmed marble vase. It was not a vase he carried, they would provide the vase. Imported. There would be a simplified 24 hour prayer ceremony. He would preside. It would be Confucian style. Classic Mandarin culture. Very Chinese.

The assistant spoke with such force and momentum, he just waited and absorbed it. Finally, she relented. He waited. The assistant stared at him. His turn.

“Mei mei. . . “ he began, hoping the closeness of calling her little sister would afford him a conspiratorial sympathy. Instead, the assistant just started again.

The money he had been given was merely a deposit. Any extra charges could be billed to the address on a business card in the envelope. The vase was already en route to the crematorium he usually used, and the temple was awaiting her remains and his presence as of 7:30 the next evening. The temple would provide five men at all hours for 24 hours to help with the ceremony, their costs had already been paid for. 

Again, finally, she paused; again, he tried in vain to stop her momentum. “Ah moi. . .”  Ma’am, he called her this time.

She pressed on again. They understood that he may have been listed as the next of kin, but if need be they could get a court injunction to prove they should be in charge of the estate. He chuckled to himself at the thought idea that the old auntie had an estate. Unusable 5 ringgit and 10 ringgit notes in a tattered envelope: that was her estate. No bills though. 
He made a mental note to go collect any of her belongings at the old folks’ home later. There never was much. Funny how a life so hard-lived, with seeds sown for a new generation, businesses started (he doubted that the cell phone powercouple now barging into his calm life had started their businesses) and yet after all that, when it was all said and done, a few outfits, a few picture frames, and that was about all he ever found in those boxes.

Some of the hardest, longest, most honest lives left the least behind.  

He felt tired. He looked over the edge of his glasses, at the assistant. She was pretty. Very pretty, like a girl from a catalogue. She was so focused and driven and lived her life on tablets and screens. Looking at her, listening to her, he was exhausted. He could preside over week long ceremonies, a few hours of sleep the whole week, singing in the hot sun. He never tired. He could kneel for hours on end, never tired. Now, after a few hours dealing with these people, he felt like a like an empty shell.

He took off his glasses, rubbed his temples. He knew what he needed to do: what he’d sworn to do.

But when he tried to open his mouth, nothing happened. He put his glasses back on. When he was young, and the country was young too, he’d gone to Singapore and seen a mannequin for the first time. He marvelled at the distilled sexuality of it. The sharp jut of her breasts and swell of her hips came from western models, and excited him. His mom pulled him away, as if sensing his fascination. When he looked at this young girl, he felt the same way. What was under her clothes? Was she even human? Where was she made? How did a young, plain Chinese girl end up in the clutches of these two bosses, and what made her stay? Some young man in her taman would have worshipped her, treated her like a queen. Worked hard for her. Why did she forego all that to work what he imagined to be 16 hour days with a phone slowly scrambling her brains?

He sighed. The assistant filled in the gap in conversation with another volley: they were sure he had already made plans with the auntie, they would be happy to cover any financial inconveniences he may experience as a result of the change in plans. . . . .

“Ah moi.” He said loudly and clearly. The edge in his voice surprised them both. “Money is not the issue, I have sworn an oath to her; I promised to bury her in a certain fashion. She was alone and . . . . “

The assistant again, this time with legal clarity and force. They would proceed with the Confucian cremation ceremony as ordered, or they would place a legal hold on all proceedings in order to obtain legal guardianship of her estate. If he really cared about the Auntie, he should know that this would be the last thing she wanted.

Her tone and conversational avenue were both disrespectful, but he could hardly blame her; she had the phone up to her ear, parroting what her boss was telling her.

He took back off the glasses. His own phone kept buzzing. He opened it. His backhoe guy. Shit. He had forgotten to cancel, and now there was a backhoe waiting under a tree in a kampong that now seemed impossibly far away.

He got up. Pushed in his chair and gripped the back. He put back on his glasses. She was off the phone again. A brief image of making love to her right there on his desk. Tasting her. Smelling her. He shook away the thought. He belonged with her just about as much as he belonged with the mannequin.

Later that night, he got drunk. Under a neem tree, at the edge of the hawker centre. He mulled over his options. The way forward for him was usually clear. He usually didn’t stress about it. This time, nothing felt right though. He watched the Tiger girl walk away. She was cute. Older than him, too old to be a beer girl much longer, but her blue Tiger skirt still held both his gaze, and the promise of a fun night.

4444

He did the ceremony: the one the niece wanted. He kept her ang pao, but never submitted any additional bills. He only opened it to peel off a few new 100 rm bills for the backhoe guy, who’d wasted an afternoon and a long and bouncy commute for nothing. He was a good guy. It was a long overdue bonus, frankly. Good Chinese workers like him were hard to find in this new generation.

The night after the ceremony, he couldn’t sleep. He’d been awake most of the previous 24 hours, and he was tired, but still he couldn’t sleep. Something was off. After hours of tossing and turning, he went downstairs, leaving his sleeping girlfriend alone. He was at her house. He didn’t own a house. He had three girlfriends who did have houses though. He lit a cigarette in her kitchen, and stared out the window at the dirty amber glow of the streetlight.

After three cigarettes, he saw the dark, dirty form of a musang on the power lines, at the edge of the streetlight’s glow. It moved slowly, steadily into the light. Right above the center of the road, it stood still, perched on the thin cable. He watched it. How long had he been awake? He checked his watch. 2:40 am. Not auspicious.

He looked back up at the musang. It was gone.

There it was. In the centre of the road. Standing still. Had it fallen down? Musang never fall down.

He wanted to open the doors, but he didn’t want the keys to disturb his girlfriend. He stood behind the glass sliding door and its metal security cage, and looked out.

4444

The next week was tense. All three girlfriends were acting up at once, there was no safe harbour.

Born in Singapore while his Malaysian parents were working, he never did get his proper Malaysian papers. As a young man, he grew up Singaporean, at least on paper. In real life, he was all Malaysian, and had left Singapore by the end of primary school.  He tried over and over to rectify the situation. Once, in his twenties, he navigated further than ever before in the hazy, lazy, depths of the Malay bureaucracy, almost getting his citizenship and passport.

Then, after a long day waiting yet again in a stifling Selangor office block, he slipped up. The Malay uncle had wooed him with a sympathy, a real neighbourhood uncle. After hours together, uncle assured him that forfeiting his Singaporean papers would be a token of his sincerity, and would help speed along the process.

He gave up his Singapore papers. Never did get his Malaysia ones.

When he left that office that day, on the bus back to Melaka, he realized he was now an unwanted man. A man without papers. This was before computer records and fingerprints. In Asia, it was all about the papers.

That was one reason his girlfriends all had houses; he couldn’t put them in his name. His business was in the name of Sav, one of his oldest friends. His truck was in the name of Nazmi, the senior of the group of Malay kids working for him.

Now, with his girlfriends mad at him, everything was tricky. It wasn’t just the sex. It was sleeping. Bathing. Finances.

All tied up. Too many strings woven all over Melaka.

4444

Within a few weeks, It was a full blown crisis.

Girlfriend 3 was the only one talking to him.

Sav died. His lifelong friend. As passive, reliable, and steady a force in his life as a god at a temple. What’s more, Sav’s wife was mad at him. Never did like him in fact.

His truck was in the shop. He loved that truck.

Too much time to do nothing. Too many idle eyes, glancing up from cell phones as they passed in and out of his office, upset by the downturn in business. They too had mouths to feed.

Mouths. He missed girlfriend 1 the most. She was talented.

None of his ceremonies were going well lately. The penultimate step at the house of the deceased was to communicate with the spirits, to find out the fate of the deceased in the next life. Lately though, he had to wing it. He made it up. He couldn’t see anymore. It was just fog now. Not clouds, just fog; not spirits, just confusion. Soon, somebody would notice. Maybe they already had. 
He looked at his calendar: filled with harsh black lines where people had cancelled.

4444

Two months later, he sat at an old kampong haunt. The click clack of a busy wok, and the drone of a Cantonese soap opera mixing with smoke and haze floated around his corner table. In his state, he fit right in with the downtrodden clientele. The only thing that was out of place was the outrageous bottle of whisky he drank. It was a gift from the family of a local land magnate.

That was a fucking ceremony. He remembered burning the Mercedes. Now they burned paper cars. That fucking Mercedes burned though.

He cleared a spot on the table in front of him. A blank space. Into it, he mentally placed all the aspects of his life. Set against the backdrop of the burned plastic tabletop, despite the onyx sheen of the whisky label, there was no mistaking the tableau: a fucking disaster.

Girlfriend 1 and 2 still weren’t talking to him. Worse, Nazmi was hinting that they were doing plenty of talking to each other.

Girlfiend 3 was doing too much talking. Lots of questions. Money questions. Marriage questions. Girlfriend questions.

Sav’s wife was asking a lot of money questions too. Tricky questions. Questions he preferred to talk about with men, not with their widows. Sav never asked so many questions. Quick to understand.

The tax office was growing tired of his old answers. Many mouths to feed, not much food lately.

He felt sick, but he was gaining a lot of weight. He still only saw fog. It was tough to meditate.

He loved that fucking truck.

All told, it was grim.  He drank. Sighed. Smoked.

In the center, he set out the Auntie’s Ang Pao. This was where it all started. Lightning struck off in the Straits. Thunder rolled. He smoked. He drank. The wind shifted, scattering huge jungle leaves and trash around the cars outside, rattling the bamboo screens.

It wasn’t so much that he knew what to do, more that he had no other things left to do. The ang pao was where it had started. The promise to the Auntie. It would end there.

Or he would die. He thought of Sav. No open casket, but he had seen. Oh, he had seen. 
Of all the dead Sav stood out. Sav should have lived longer. If it could happen to Sav. . . .

4444

He took a final drink of the whisky. Left the rest on the table, walked out into the wind. He scrunched up his face and went around the block. There was still a chicken rice place open this late, an acceptable one.

He got her one, steamed, to go, with chili sauce, and a bahli panas. This situation had cost him his life maybe, depending on various outcomes as yet unclear to him, at the very least it had cost him tens of thousands of ringgit and the two worst months of his life; it might just take 5.50rm to fix it.

Clutching the thin plastic bag, he walked down the street, with the wind, into her old taman. A few drops of rain hit him. The wind pushed. Eventually, wet now, he arrived at the square. Tough to imagine her memories, if he hadn’t seen them too. He remembered this area before it turned for the worse. It was nice. A real Chinese enclave. A safe harbour.

He crossed a small ditch at the edge of a parking lot, and fought some weeds to get to the tree. There was a small clearing. It was raining steadily now, but he carefully opened all the food, and took the lid off the drink, and set it out as you would for a picnic with your mom.

On his hands and knees, he surveyed the meagre offerings. He added the ang pao, then thought better and put it back in his pocket. He cleared his throat, put his palms on his thighs.

“Auntie,” he continued in Hokkien, “I brought you Chicken rice. Not the one you wanted, but a good one. The chili is nice. You’ll like it. Very fragrant. It will keep you warm, fight the cold wind.

“Auntie. You are mad. I know. I have felt it. I understand. I broke my promise. I broke my vow.

“But, Auntie, you are angry at the wrong person. I tried. I tried auntie. You know them. You told me you didn’t, but you know these people. I can see why you did not want to speak of them, but you know them lah. I could not resist them Auntie, they pushed me.

“Forget it. Forget about that. You have broken me. I have nothing left. My business is vanishing, my women are mad at me, my friend, my partner is done, I am sick, drunk, and I do not see the future and the spirits like I can. I am done. If you want to punish me, I am done. I cannot.
He sighed. Rain rolled off his nose.

“Thank you for listening Auntie. Please, eat. Eat the rice.

“So, I’m giving you this meal wan. I know you love Chicken rice. This is a good one mah:  fragrant. Your favorite was closed, but I’ll bring you some when it’s open. I was going to give you the money too, but I know you are smart one, and traditional, and don’t want me to leave money like this The kids would come take it. No respect. I’ll drop it off at the temple just now. Your old temple. The good one. The small one. The auntie there can use it for her daughter in KL. She’s pregnant again. Husband no good. Always hungry, never full.

“Auntie, I feel you here. I feel you around all the time. You are a spirit now. Go where you want. If little sister put you in that temple and you don’t like it, then leave. Come here. Be here. Go to the temples. The parks. Be where you want.”

He took a deep breath. Wiped off his thighs, then his hands. He opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing came out. He tried to remember everything he’d prayed. It had all been said. It was up to her now.

It stopped raining.

88888888

One year later, almost to the day, he got a call from Masjid Tanah. It wasn’t an area he went much anymore, but the young lady sounded nice.

He left girlfriend 1’s house, got in his truck, and stopped in Alor Gajah for some really good boar curry. The grandfather of the family was now in the hospital. He was 91. A local legend. Amazing curry. Bad for the family, and he felt for their loss. It would be an anchor type of event though, one that could solidify what was becoming a banner year.

When he finally got to Masjid Tanah, he recognized the house. This was another local magnate. A food business if he recalled correctly.

At the gate, he saw two portraits of the deceased and recognized them right away. Same with the mannequin girl, who was waiting for him at the door. She looked well without the phone. So did the power couple.

Funny how dying and putting down the phone both make you look better.