The Weight of Our Sky: Chapters 7–10

On the fifth day, having slipped out to procure more supplies, Vincent comes home bearing a bag of rice and an official-looking piece of paper, which he hands to Auntie Bee...

“And what did you go and do that for?” she says nonchalantly.

There’s no bravado, no beating of his chest; he says it as matter-of-factly as if he were talking about the weather.

“Fine, fine,” she murmurs immediately, rearranging her face back into its usual amiable expression, busying herself with potatoes.

“You’ve always been a bleeding heart,” he says, shaking his head and tossing the strip of cloth contemptuously on the bed.

Our favorite was the legend of Hang Nadim, whose coastal village was cursed with a plague of swordfish thanks, as always, to the actions of a feckless, wretched king.

What a lovely little conundrum this is!

I’ve barely slept, having spent the night pacing Vince’s room in a special series of patterns and sequences designed to placate the Djinn and protect the entire house while I’m gone.

Here, the smoldering husk of a burned-out car; there, a smattering of broken glass from shop windows; farther on, a sprawling stain on the pavement roughly the shape of Australia that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than dried blood.

“Bloody politicians and their bloody stupid rhetoric, speeches, ideologies. You ever hear anyone say words don’t matter after this, you tell them about this day, when Malay idiots and Chinese idiots decided to kill one another because they believed what the bloody politicians told them.”

I fight to quash him, force him down, keep him silent, but the effort is making me queasy.

As we drive on, we pass shiny red trucks laden with men in blue-and-red uniforms bearing stout truncheons—“FRU,” Jay explains to me. “Federal Reserve Unit, the riot police”—and roadblocks staffed by armed guards who demand our credentials.

Mala’s mother reaches out a wizened hand to pat his.

The Djinn flutters his fingers lightly against the walls of my stomach, but I tamp him down.

“People up to no good,” he says, smiling wanly.

Without even thinking, I start to count, my fingers tapping convulsively—one, two, three, one, two, three—but the image won’t go away.

The memory of it brings up fresh tears: Mama and me at the record store, flipping through the latest releases, giggling over particularly garish album covers, shrieking with excitement when we find the perfect one.

Jay snaps off a jaunty salute.

It takes a few minutes of back-and-forth, but in the end Jay gives in, launching into a spirited rendition of “Twist and Shout.”

Part of me wants to retch; another part of me notes once again how familiar this scene is to my visions, this tableau of death and gore brought to life; one final other part, the one the Djinn has a firm grasp on, notes with grim satisfaction that there are six bodies, two sets of three, a safe number (although not, obviously, for them).

They begin looking around them, scouring the ground for long sticks they can use to poke and prod and fish the bodies out of the water, and suddenly I can’t bear to watch.

Here, even the buildings bear scars of the past week: broken windows, the haphazard patterns of bullet holes, angry smoke stains, smoldering husks of what used to be shops and homes.

It’s all right, I tell myself, trying to tamp down the jarring feeling of foreboding, the sense of impending doom.

I walk through the detritus and although I feel like weeping, a part of me is fascinated by what the flames chose to consume and what they chose to keep intact...

Instead, approaching me from a distance is Mak Siti, as neat and trim as ever, her hair tied back in a loose bun, her floral cotton baju kurung with nary a smidge of dirt besmirching it.

Instead, approaching me from a distance is Mak Siti, as neat and trim as ever, her hair tied back in a loose bun, her floral cotton baju kurung with nary a smidge of dirt besmirching it.

When we were little, he liked to pull my hair and then run away, laughing; in recent years, this has given way to sitting with his friends on a special grassy knoll shaded by coconut trees and whistling to girls as they pass.

“You betray us with your associations, gallivanting about with Chinese pigs while your friends and family bleed at their feet. I wish my daughter never knew you.”

The world suddenly begins to tilt and sway, and I close my eyes to ward off the sensation of trying to walk on jelly, but all I see in the darkness is death.

So I sit, counting each individual leaf on the coconut fronds overhead as they wave lightly in the breeze, weaving Jay’s handkerchief clumsily in and out of my shaking fingers, hating the Djinn and hating myself.

In the distance, the rumble of a motorcycle getting closer and closer knocks me out of my stupor.

The bike careens left and right as he tries to avoid the shots.

The woman’s eyes fly open, and she shakes her head, her mouth set in a thin, obstinate line.

Being apart means never knowing what dangers could befall him.

I can feel his eyes traveling up and down my body, lingering insolently in select spots, and feel the bile rise to my throat.

His tone is perfectly pleasant, his grin wide and leering.

Along one corridor, bags are piled high on gurneys. “You can’t leave these here!” I hear one doctor yell at the beleaguered attendant, who shrugs.

I start pacing, and as I walk, I count—a barrier, a protective incantation to ward off the specter of death.

I start pacing, and as I walk, I count—a barrier, a protective incantation to ward off the specter of death.

My heart pounds a frantic, erratic beat, so hard that I’m actually afraid it will explode into a million tiny pieces.