Short Story: The Prostitute's Daughter
“Tai, look at that girl out
there,” said Mama, pointing through the window at a bob-haired little girl who
was busy sweeping the porch of our new neighbour’s house.
“Who is she, Mama?” I asked
impatiently.
“She is Mei Ping, our new
neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter,” said Mama. “See how hardworking she is. You are now eleven
but I’ve never seen you sweeping the floor.”
“It’s not my fault,” I snorted.
“You’ve never asked me to sweep.” I did
not like being compared with the little girl.
Mama liked Mei Ping the first
time she saw her. Maybe the little girl
reminded her of her distant younger self.
As the eldest child, Mama had borne the responsibility of doing the
household chores for her family. She could see herself in the girl. Mei Ping, whose mother was a divorcee, lived
a separate life from her father and younger sister. Her mother, who worked as a salon girl in
Brunei, employed a young housemaid to look after Mei Ping. She only came back to see Mei Ping once a month. The housemaid, according to Mama’s
observation, had a bad habit of going out with her friends and leaving Mei Ping
alone at home. Taking pity on her, Mama
frequently asked Mei Ping to come and join us for lunch and dinner.
I loathed Mei Ping’s presence in
my house. The sight of her praising Mama’s
cooking filled me with hatred. She had a
way with my unpredictable papa too. She
always engaged him in banter and they laughed aloud together. The girl liked to see my parents making
steamed buns and she always asked questions.
“Mei Ping is intelligent and observant,” said Papa, sharing Mama’s
opinion. “She will be successful when
she grows up.” The more praise my
parents heaped on Mei Ping, the more I hated her.
In the beginning, my two
siblings – my older sister, Ah Hui, and younger brother, Weng Weng , shared my antagonism
towards Mei Ping. However, having
mingled with her as they played games together over a period of several weeks,
they had found common ground with the girl.
They always went out for walks together and played with the other kids
in the neighbourhood. Refusing to tag
along with them, I often chose to stay in my bedroom, reading
comic books and drawing cartoons.
Experiencing puberty at this stage of my life, I developed a huge
interest in the human body. My drawings
were replete with muscle-bound superheroes and scantily clad women. I hid my drawings, particularly those of the
semi-naked women, in my school bag. One
afternoon, I got home from school and had a shower, leaving my bag in the
sitting room. Mama, Mei Ping and I were
the only ones in the house. Ah Hui and
Weng Weng had joined Papa on a shopping trip to town. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw Mei Ping
flipping through my drawings, her face grimacing in disgust.
“Who asked you to ransack my
bag?” I shouted, stamping my foot in an access of extreme anger. “Give me my
drawings!”
“It was half open and I was
curious about what you had done at school,” said Mei Ping, cowering. “Why did you draw all these figures?”
“That’s none of your business!”
I was unable to contain my anger and gave her a slap. Mei Ping yelled in pain and Mama rushed out
of the kitchen.
“Stop it, Tai!” Mama demanded
sternly. But I did not listen and
continued hitting Mei Ping.
With all her might, Mama dragged me into the storeroom.
She grabbed a cane and in a blind rage, whipped me
with it all over my body. Each stroke bit into my flesh and I cried tears of pain.
When Mama realised that she was losing her self-control, she threw the cane
aside and knelt down crying. Witnessing everything through the ajar door, Mei
Ping walked into the storeroom and hugged Mama from behind, saying:
“It was my fault, Auntie. I shouldn’t have touched Tai Tai’s belongings.”
Mama returned her hug and kissed her on the forehead. She then felt the
welts on my arms and whispered an apology between sobs. I was so
guilt-stricken that I dared not look at Mama and Mei Ping. When we stopped
crying, Mama went to cook dinner in the kitchen and Mei Ping helped her to
rinse the rice. I went back to the sitting room, picked up the scattered drawings
and threw them into the rubbish bin outside. All of us then acted as if nothing
had happened.
My perception of Mei Ping began
to change one night. There was a power
outage in the neighbourhood and Mei Ping, Ah Hui, Weng Weng and I were doing
our schoolwork around a brightly lit candle.
Our shadows loomed large on the walls and Weng Weng could not help
making shadow animals with his fingers.
“Weng, stop
playing around,” berated Mama. “Do your
homework.”
Weng Weng immediately stopped playing and poked
out his tongue.
“Mama,” said Ah Hui. “the kettle is hissing.”
“Okay, I’ll turn off the fire,” said Mama,
rising. “Hui, come and make tea with
me.”
Ah Hui got up from her chair and went into the
kitchen with Mama, leaving Mei Ping, Weng Weng and I behind doing our homework.
“Weng, how lucky of you to be scolded by Auntie,”
said Mei Ping, looking at the boy with a ponderous expression on her face.
“Why do you say that?” asked Weng Weng, baffled.
“You can see your mum every day and I can’t,”
explained Mei Ping. “She can point out your wrongdoings and mine can’t.”
“But my mum nags a lot,” said Weng Weng,
pouting.
“It shows that she cares about you,” said Mei Ping,
wiping the corner of her eye. “How I wish to be nagged by a loving mum every
day.”
I was touched by the sincerity in Mei Ping’s voice. I finally understood why Mei Ping liked
coming to my house. She wanted
attention. She wanted LOVE! I had been too hard on her all this time.
Mei Ping’s mother, a beautiful, fashionable
woman in her late twenties, was a pariah in the neighbourhood. We were accustomed to hearing through the
grapevine that she sold herself to give pleasure to the men in Brunei. She always returned to Miri in different
men’s cars. Each man would spend many
hours at her house and Mei Ping would come to our house complaining that the
visitors were annoying.
“Why do you find your mum’s boyfriends
annoying?” asked Mama.
“All of them like telling dirty jokes,” said
Mei Ping. “And they also have a habit of pawing her body and looking at her
lecherously.”
“How does your mummy react?”
“She giggles and plants kisses on their faces.”
One afternoon, an elderly woman paid Mama a
visit and she frowned upon seeing Mei Ping skipping ropes with Ah Hui in the
backyard.
“Why are you letting that prostitute’s daughter
spend so much time at your house?” she asked, her voice full of rebuke.
“Prostitute?” said mama. “You are too harsh on
Mei Ping’s mother!”
“Everybody knows that she sells her flesh for a
living,” retorted the woman. “How many salon girls really cut hair for a living?”
“We shouldn’t be prejudiced against Mei Ping
because of her mother,” said Mama, placidly. “No child should bear the sins of
his or her parents.”
Mother, oh Mother. She spoke up for Mei Ping many times.
Mei Ping and I were seldom on speaking terms,
and whenever she came to my house, I would try my best to stay in my bedroom for
as long as possible. I was ashamed of
myself after the incident in the storeroom.
We remained awkward around each other until the day she brought a puppy
to my house.
The floppy-eared, short-haired female puppy was
very cute and adorable. There were black spots on her white coat and her short-muzzled
face was characterised by two black patches over her eyes. “My uncle in Krokop
gave me this puppy!” piped Mei Ping. “His dog gave birth to eight puppies.” On
Mei Ping’s request, Ah Hui named the puppy ‘Pipi’. The puppy won the hearts of
everyone in my family, particularly mine.
It responded warmly to our stroking hands and licked them in acceptance
of our friendship.
From that day onwards, Pipi became a pet that
was shared between Mei Ping and my family.
Whenever she came to my house with Mei Ping, Papa would lift her up to
his shoulder and ran his hand over her fur. Ah Hui, Weng Weng and I would clamour around him,
begging him to let us hold her. Only Mei
Ping could end the chaos. With
precocious tact, she would transfer the puppy gently from one person to another. Mama observed all this with a smile.
On weekends, Mei Ping, Ah Hui, Weng Weng and I
would have a whale of a time playing with Pipi in the banana field not far from
where we lived. We would take turns throwing
a twig across the field and Pipi would run to fetch it. At the sight of us touching the scattering mimosa
plants, she would lick them with great curiosity. When playing Hide and Seek, Pipi
would reveal our hiding spots to Ah Hui with her barking. At the height of our fun, I would roll in the
grass like the puppy. Before I could get
up on my elbows, she would jump onto my body and send me into a fit of laughter
with her tickling tongue. When we sang
and jiggled, she would boisterously jump hither and thither. We experienced great joy in each other’s
company.
Mei Ping and Pipi spent countless nights
sleeping at my house. Their presence
had become habitual for everyone in my family. Many times I found myself
laughing with Mei Ping. The puppy did
wonders for bridging the gap between us.
I sketched many pictures of Mei Ping and Pipi. Mei Ping always took the pictures to her
school and proudly showed them to her friends.
One day, papa told my siblings and me that we
had to move from our house. “The
landlord doesn’t want to extend our tenancy,” said Papa gloomily. “I can’t find any house with rent as low as
ours, and the only way to solve the problem is to move to your uncle-in-law’s vacant
house.” All of us were sad to hear the
news. Uncle Ah Choi, our uncle-in-law, was
the husband of papa’s youngest sister, Auntie Sei Ko. They had moved to Johor for good several
years before and there was no one occupying their house. We were reluctant to
leave our present house, Mei Ping and Pipi.
On the day of departure, Mei Ping said farewell to us with tears in her
eyes.
“Mei Ping, don’t cry,” said Mama. “We will come
and visit you and Pipi as often as possible.”
“Thanks, Auntie,” sobbed Mei Ping.
“Be a good girl,” Mama added. “Take good care
of yourself.”
“I will,” said Mei Ping.
“Look after Pipi too,” I reminded her. “She means a lot to us.”
We exchanged hugs with Mei Ping
before climbing into Papa’s car and leaving the house that had been a home to
us for five years. Pipi, who seemed to
be able to sense sadness in the air, uttered a loud bark and chase behind our
car. The puppy, who by now had matured
into a full grown dog, pursued us with such strong persistence that she did not
pay the slightest attention to the traffic along the road. Some cars honked at her but this did not
deter her from chasing our car. My
siblings and I begged Papa to pull over to let Pipi in but he drove faster and
faster. When the dog was reduced to a
tiny speckle in the distance, our faces were hotly awash with tears.
Life at Uncle Ah Choi’s house
was stressful. Uncle Ah Sing, the
younger churlish brother of my uncle-in-law, openly showed us his dislike of
our presence and always found fault with us. He had been the one looking after
Uncle Ah Choi’s house before we had moved in. Every morning, he and his wife
came all the way from Krokop to tend the garden in the large backyard of the
house. Once in a while the wives of some Shell expatriates would come and buy
orchids from them. They used a lot of water every day but refused to share
water bill payments with us at the end of each month. The two brats that they brought along with
them had a bad habit of scattering things on the floor. When my siblings and I insisted that they put
everything back neatly, they bawled and complained to their parents that we had
beaten them. My parents dared not argue with them lest they report to Uncle Ah
Choi and make him chase us out of the house. I hated Ah Sing’s family and the house but Mama
advised me to bear with them.
We kept our promise and visited
Mei Ping regularly. On each visit, we had a lot of tales to share with her and she
would try to keep us at her house for as long as possible. Before we left, we
would remind Mei Ping to chain Pipi lest she chase us again. After several months, Pipi gave birth to a
litter of six puppies and we were happy for her. Mei Ping wanted to give us the cutest puppy
but Papa said no to her. Uncle Ah Sing
disliked dogs and he disallowed us to keep any in Uncle Ah Choi’s house.
One afternoon, Papa sent his car for repairs
and mama, Ah Hui, Weng Weng and I decided to visit Mei Ping. Although her house was quite far from ours,
it was still within a moderate walking distance. It took us thirty minutes to reach her house
but we were disappointed to find that no one was home. Pipi greeted us outside the gate with excited
squeals and jumped up on each of us. Her puppies were nowhere to be seen and we
gathered Mei Ping’s maid must have given them away. Disappointed, we walked back home but Pipi
kept following us.
“Mama,” said Ah Hui. “There’s no
way we can chase Pipi back to Mei Ping’s house.
Can we keep her?”
“No,” Mama said. “Pipi is Mei Ping’s
dog. We can’t keep her as ours. I will think of a way to take her back to Mei
Ping’s house.”
Upon reaching Uncle Ah Choi’s
house, Pipi dashed in when we opened the gate and Uncle Ah Sing was shocked to
see her.
“Whose dog is this? I don’t want dogs on my brother’s compound!”
“Ah Sing,” Mama said calmly.
“She is my ex neighbour’s dog. Can she
stay here with us for a while?”
“No way!” shouted Uncle Ah Sing.
“Chase her away. I can’t stand the sight
of a filthy dog in my brother’s house.”
“She’s not filthy!” shouted Weng
Weng.
“Shh!” Mama quickly shushed Weng
Weng.
Uncle Ah Sing’s children were
excited to see Pipi. They picked up some
loose ornamental bricks in the garden and threw them at Pipi. One of them hit Pipi on her side and she
yelped in pain.
“Don’t hurt Pipi, you brats!” My
siblings and I spat angry words at the top of our voices. In a stern voice, Mama ordered us to go to
our rooms, and she left the house with Pipi. When she was near to Mei Ping’s
house, she took a bus home and left Pipi behind, leaving Pipi behind. She expected her to find her way back to Mei Ping’s
house.
Three weeks after the incident,
Mei Ping paid us a surprise visit. She
told us that Pipi had gone missing and that her mother had remarried.
“When did Pipi go missing?” Ah
Hui asked.
“About three weeks ago,” said
Mei Ping. “My maid and I did not see her
when we returned home from my auntie’s house.
We searched for her for weeks until we gave up a few days ago.”
Ah Hui and mama looked at each other without saying
a word. Guilt and shame were written on
their faces. I tried very hard to
restrain my urge to cry. If we had not
visited Mei Hui that day, Pipi would not have followed us to Uncle Ah Choi’s
house and faced the chaos that had ensued.
Was the dog so upset that she had decided not to return to Mei Ping’s
house? Had she been run down by a car on her way back?
“What is your mother’s plan for you?” asked Mama.
“My maid will be dismissed in three days, and I
will move to my mother’s friend’s house in the same neighbourhood.”
“Why didn’t your mother take you to Brunei?”
“She wanted to, but her husband is planning to
move to Miri in a year. It is much trouble
to enrol me in a new school in Brunei, so they think it’s best for me to stay at
Mr. Chong’s house for the time being.”
“It’s a good thing your mum will be back in
Miri for good,” mama said.
“No, I don’t like it,” said Mei Ping, her face
flushing in anger. “I don’t want to call
a stranger Papa.”
“Be patient, Mei Ping,” pacified Mama. “God must’ve planned this for a reason.”
“Auntie,” said Mei Ping. “Do you know that my mum has been pregnant
for five months. Very soon she will give
birth.”
“Extend my heartfelt congratulations to your
mother,” said Mama. “Be thankful that
you’re going to have a new sibling.”
“Maybe I ought to be thankful,” mumbled Mei Ping,
looking into space. “I wonder if my
mother will treat me the same as before.”
Mei Ping did not live a happy life at Mr.
Chong’s house. She always complained to
Mama on the phone that his kids liked calling her a prostitute’s daughter. Before long, Mei Ping told Mama that her
mother had given birth to a baby and that very soon she would move back to
Miri. We were all happy for Mei Ping. However, we did not expect the friction
between Mei Ping and Mr. Chong’s family to become more and more serious. One day, a fight erupted between her and the
family. Angry and disconsolate, she
came to our house with a tear-streaked face.
She told Mama that Mr. Chong had accused her of stealing.
“I did not steal Mrs. Chong’s earrings,” sobbed
Mei Ping. “I won’t degrade myself by
doing such a thing.”
“Dry your tears, Mei Ping,” said Mama, handing
hera tissue. “Your uncle and I will
accompany you to Mr. Chong’s house and reason with him.”
With that, Mama and Papa went with Mei Ping to
Mr. Chong’s house. Ah Hui, Weng Weng and
I remained at home, anxious about the outcome of their visit with Mr. Chong. We firmly believed that Mei Ping was
wrongfully accused of stealing and that something fishy must have been going
on. Two hours went by and our parents
finally returned home, fuming anger evident on their faces.
“From now on I don’t want to have anything to
do with Mei Ping,” Papa declared.
“I never expected Mei Ping to be such a
dishonest child,” said Mama.
“What happened, Mama,” I asked, incredulous.
“We argued with Mr. Chong for almost one hour
and we eventually found out that his wife’s earrings were in Mei Ping’s pencil
case,” said mama.
“She must have been framed, Mama,” I said.
“The evidence was very strong against Mei Ping
and there was nothing we could do about it,” said Mama, with finality.
I was very shocked by Mama’s strong reaction
towards Mei Ping’s alleged stealing of the earrings. She had been very sympathetic towards Mei Ping
and to me, her change of attitude was abrupt and unfair. But Mama did not listen to anything I said.
The next afternoon, Mei Ping came to our house
looking sorrowful. She greeted Mama
several times, but Mama ignored her. I felt bad for Mei Ping.
“Auntie,” said Mei Ping. “Believe me, I really
didn’t steal the earrings.”
“You didn’t steal them?” Mama erupted, unable
to remain quiet any more. “I treated you
like my own child all this while, and this is the reward I get. I could not defend you because the earrings
were in your pencil case!”
“Believe me, I didn’t…” Mei Ping was on the
verge of tears.
“Stop feigning innocence,” said Mama
cruelly. “I already have a lot of
problems and I don’t intend to add yours to mine. Go back where you belong. We are through.”
Mei Ping paled at Mama’s last remark. With a sombre look, she left our house. That was the last time we saw her.
We heard nothing about Mei Ping for three to
five years. She was totally cut off from
our lives. My siblings and I finished
our secondary school education one after the other. We no longer lived in Uncle Ah Choi’s
house. We had moved into a shop house in
town. A few days before I went to
Kuching to further my studies, Papa told us that he had bumped into Mei Ping’s
aunt in town.
“How is Mei Ping?” Mama asked.
“Her auntie told me that she is now living with
her boyfriend in West Malaysia,” said Papa.
“What! With her boyfriend? She’s only seventeen!”
exclaimed Ah Hui.
“Apparently Mei Ping did not have a happy life
with her mother,” Papa said. “She always
quarreled with her stepfather, and her mother always sided with him. She felt like a stranger in her house because
her younger brother got all the attention.
After LCE, she stopped her schooling and worked in a salon.”
“How did she get to know this boyfriend?” asked
Mama.
“Her boyfriend was her customer, and she fell
in love with him after they ate out together several times. To get away from her mother, she flew to West
Malaysia with him, hoping to live a better life.”
“My goodness,” said Mama, sighing. “How bad she
has become. She’s no longer the same
girl that we knew.”
Indeed, Mei Ping’s decision was worrying. It was dangerous for a girl as young as she
was to cohabit with an almost stranger.
We ceased to hear from her for two years. By then, I had finished my sixth-form
education in Kuching and had returned to Miri to work as an enumerator with the
Statistics Department. Papa had stopped
selling steamed buns and now he spent much of his time doing voluntary church
work. One day, after conducting a Bible
knowledge class, Papa stumbled upon Mei Ping’s mother in an open-air-market. When Papa asked after Mei Ping, her face turned
sad and she covered it with her hands.
In a shaky voice, she told Papa that Mei Ping had been caught
prostituting in Malacca and that she was now in jail.
“In a few days I will fly to Malacca to bail
her out,” said Mei Ping’s mother.
“What made her become a prostitute?” asked Papa.
“Her boyfriend owed a lot of money and asked
her to sell herself to pay his debt,” said Mei Ping’s mother, her voice
quavering.
“What a beast he is!” said Papa, emphatically.
“I regret quarrelling with her when she was
around,” said Mei Ping’s mother, weeping.
“I should have paid more attention to her.”
“Ask her to return to Miri and start her life
anew,” said papa. “Tell her that my wife
and I both miss her.”
My siblings and I received the news with
disbelief. We could not accept the fact
that our childhood friend had ended up becoming a prostitute. As a kid, she had been so precocious,
mild-tempered and passionate about life.
Mei Ping killed herself two weeks after her
mother bailed her out. She plunged to
her death from the top of a six floor building.
Mei Ping’s mother told us the sad news on the phone. We were all thunderstruck and couldn’t utter
a word. Mama was the most shaken
one. She was sullenly quiet for almost the
whole day. She finally broke down in
tears that night, regretting scolding Mei Ping with her harsh words that
afternoon. Mei Ping’s fate could have
been different if she had comforted her and asked her to stay with us.
Many years flew by and one night I had a
strange dream. I dreamt that Mei Ping
came to my house with Pipi. She wore a lacy
white gown and looked very beautiful and elegant. Pipi was as cute as ever, her coat glossy and
fluffy. The two seemed to be shrouded in
a gentle light, with Mei Ping smiling and stroking Pipi in her arms as I told
her how much I missed them. I wanted to
serve her tea but she told me that she was not thirsty. She just looked at me with a contented
look. Pipi then jumped down from her lap
and licked my hand like the first time she had licked it. I was so overwhelmed with joy that I hugged
her tightly in my arms. Mei Ping rose from her seat
and circled her arms around us. I kept
whispering their names until I woke up with tears on my pillow.
The rain had by now dwindled to a drizzle. Pencils of light shot through the chinks of
the window, and a rainbow could be seen arcing across the sky. Could Mei Ping and Pipi be on the other end
of the rainbow?
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