Initiates

Initiates is a short story set in Brunei. Sylvia and Ted have been invited to a wedding...

As Sylvia and Ted took their assigned seats, they could still see one another. Ted still towered above the slight frame of his host, as the latter applied the rules of a protocol of which his guest was unaware. There were perfunctory introductions to make, people to acknowledge on the way to the seat that Haji had pre-determined might be suitable for a European, an orang puteh. It was another five minutes before the orang puteh declined to the seated height of the rest of the men, a five minutes when Sylvie kept her eyes firmly on the reassuring, gangly form of her husband. Haji, who had greeted them at the gate with an indication that the women were to the left and the men to the right, then turned and began to retrace his steps back to the entrance, his relaxed, gentle demeanour spiritedly hurried by the grandeur and significance of the occasion.

 

Sylvie had gasped when he opened the gate. Never before had she seen a man dressed like that. At only just over five feet in height, Haji could hardly be described as an impressive or imposing presence. But the man who greeted them sported an iridescent purple satin suit, a baju melayu, wrapped around the middle with a gold-embroidered samping, a cloth to cover business district, as Sylvie had taken to describing it. This one, however, a tekat, was opulent beyond anything she had yet seen, the obvious weight of its gold thread snagging the lighter material of his loose suit. And instead of the black songkok she associated with his working dress, today he wore a lightly-wound glittering blue turban, rich fabric that looked to have more gold than thread, despite its assertion of colour.

 

“He’s like a bird of paradise on display,” she said, whispering to Ted as Haji invited them into the grounds of his house...

 

“But he has already attracted his mate and bred,” her husband answered. “That’s why we’re here.”

 

The man on Ted’s left greeted him warmly and shook hands in the accepted manner. Being the kind of Australian male who is unused to doing things by halves, Ted was immediately embarrassed. For him a handshake was an expression of strength, an assertion of presence, of confidence, perhaps control. For Ted, a weak little brush of the fingers of both hands, without grasp, grip or shake was disturbing. To follow this with a finger tip touch of the breastbone as a gesture of sincerity was uncomfortable in the extreme, like asking him to go naked, or to stand in isolated embarrassment. The man also introduced himself, using the title pengiran, the term that Ted had already understood to signify an elevated status, but a status that had no automatic recognition. “I am Ted Coates, plain Mr. Ted Coates,” he said. “I work with Haji’s daughter. This is my first invitation.”

 

But then, that was why they were here, at this wedding, in this country, to see, feel and experience different cultures, to travel, to experience the world. On Ted’s right, plain, young Adbullah also offered his greeting. Ted accepted, uncomfortably, but second time round he was getting used to the idea of this gentle touching. The people at work were mainly expats, so this was new, despite the fact that Sylvie and he had already been in the country for almost half a year. “These people don’t let foreigners into their lives too easily,” Ted had said to her as he parked their new Corolla amidst the jumbled admixture of luxury cars, discarded apparently at random on the grassy edge of the drainage ditch. “It’s a real privilege to be invited.” The words “Women to the left and men to the right” had sent a jolt of terror through him, however. It was a sting that Sylvia had perceived, sensed not because she shared his dread of isolation, but merely because she knew her husband, could predict his fears.

 

“Salamat dating,” said Abdullah, as he caressed Ted’s gingerly offered hand, before touching his breast.

 

“Hello,” Ted repeated, withdrawing, rather than arcing his hand, an adjudged effeminacy he preferred at distance.

 

“English?”

 

“Australian.”

 

“Ah, yes. I was there two years ago. I walked on Bondi Beach.”

 

“What? You managed to walk along Bondi? Every square inch is usually occupied by Kiwis in tents!” The raucous laugh that followed elicited a mere polite smile from Abdullah.

 

“What do you do here?”

 

“I work with the airline – in the same office as Nora, Haji’s daughter. That’s how I know her and I suppose that’s why I was invited.”

 

“I hope you are enjoying our country,” said Abdullah. Ted was unable to interpret the broad smile that accompanied his neighbour’s still perfunctory manner.

 

“We are starting to settle in now,” Ted replied. “It was a bit difficult until we got the housing sorted out, but it’s all right now.” In the few seconds the words occupied, Ted recalculated his foreign-denominated salary in Aussie dollars, balanced that against twelve times his monthly mortgage payments on their new house in Brisbane, subtracted what he and Sylvie might need to live on and felt the warmth of the savings excess. “And the job seems to be going well,” apart from the opaque bureaucracy, the layers of useless protocol, the incompetence of my superior and the contradictory policies of management, he didn’t say, the savings balance staying his tongue.

 

Having greeted the woman on her left, Sylvie realised that she had very little English. There was some conversation in Malay with an occasional English word that served to identify the various dishes set out on the table before them. But it was hardly communication, muted beyond mere politeness, approaching a correctness Sylvie could feel, but not interpret. As she surveyed the rectangle of conforming females, who all sat facing the central tables, set with their covered, as yet untouched food, she was quite suddenly conscious of her drabness. Tropical heat and rain forest humidity had presented an ideological conjunction leading her to light clothing, patterned to hide the sweat, but neutral both in shade and statement, purchased for the occasion from a nearby Chinese supermarket in an attempt not to stand out. Every other woman present, of course, was resplendent in colours she associated only with the foil wrappings of cheap chocolates. They were veritable rainbows of garish hue, thus confining her beiges and browns to a singly occupied ghetto of drabness, an utterly conspicuous hen house sparrow amidst a flock of tropical weavers.

 

“What is your name?”

 

Sylvie turned to her right. “Sylvia. Hello. Pleased to meet you,” she replied, offering her hand. The young woman was vast, so big she rendered Sylvie’s early middle age fullness sylph-like in comparison. She wore a baju kurong comprising metre upon metre of purple and green, and topped this with a bright pink tudong. Its statement caught Sylvie’s eye and, for the first time, she became conscious of her own uncovered hair. She felt a little naked.

 

“I am Zubaidah and this is my mother,” said the woman in stentorian tone. She pointed to the next woman along the line, a minute, wizened, toothless old lady whose angled wrist, offered in greeting across the expanse of her daughter’s breast, was reminiscent of a snapped twig. “Are you English?”

 

“I suppose I am,” said Sylvie. “I’m Australian really, but my parents were English, from Oldham…” Sylvie had not wanted the conversation to progress. She used the specificity of the place as a full stop, an inserted attempt to call a halt. She did not feel quite comfortable. The ploy immediately backfired.

 

“Oldham?” repeated Zubaidah at piercing volume, the incongruity of the place name echoing unknown around the group. “I went to university in Salford. I know it well.”

 

“Actually, I have not been there since I was a child. My parents went to Australia when I was just six years old. I was brought up in Sydney.”

 

“Have you been here long?”

 

“About six months. It’s my husband who has the contract. He works for the airline.”

 

Ted had now occupied his allotted seat for ten minutes. He had checked the passing of each one with a glance at the shining wristwatch he had bought on their last holiday. He had picked it out from a plain but sturdily hinged plywood box full of similar offerings. They had been in a Kuta bar at the time, a genuine Balinese experience with VB on draught, pure nectar savoured only minutes after checking into their beach hotel. Three months of life in this dry country had made that beer taste better than he ever imagined the standard Aussie brew could manage, had lightened his mood, had persuaded him not to dismiss with his usual impatient wave the approach of a smiling hawker. “Genuine imitation” were the words the young man had used when he opened his box of watches and, more for a laugh than anything else, Ted bought a Rolex for ten US dollars. The ones on the wrists around this table were probably genuine, he thought. No matter how much the wristwatch cost, however, time went at precisely the same speed.

 

Apart from occasional comings and goings, a varied rustle of wind through the nearby shrubs and rare conversations, the organised square of men sat silently, yearning for a drink, non-alcoholic, of course. Sweat had started to trickle down Ted’s rather ruddy neck, tickling its glistened path towards the absorbency of his shirt-front, which was starting to stick. The Javanese batik that he would never dare to wear to a Brisbane bar would not show the patch. But the fabric would not breathe, and he would sweat more. It would stick to the skin.

 

Haji and three other men had begun a personal greeting of each guest. It was clearly going to take an age, since there were two groups of men, separate but arranged under the same large, free-standing awning. There were, Ted calculated, at least sixty men seated in the pair of squares, each with its own central tessellation of tables spread with a collection of curries and Coca Cola, waiting to be devoured. But Haji and his entourage seem determined to visit each invitee and even converse along the way. “It’s time to dig in for a long innings,” Ted thought at the very moment he truly understood his host’s motive. There was money changing hands. Every guest was offering cash. It was clearly expected. He began to panic. He had only brought five dollars… He could see others handing over twenty or more.

 

His heart began to beat a little faster and he could feel, even in this heat, a distinct warming at the collar as he self-consciously looked around his own male square to judge reactions, to decide if he dare ask whether the donation was mandatory. Two young men on his right, sitting at right angles to his perspective, near the corner of the square, had their heads bowed. One was in light blue, the other a restrained olive green, both with colour-coordinated samping around the midriff. The tops of their songkoks were perfectly horizontal, as if placed to anticipate the bowed prayer-like angle of their heads. Their hands were clasped just below the crotch, an external jockstrap to support their devout contemplation. “Asleep,” he muttered to himself.

 

The next three men were all engaged in varieties of activity. The man in brilliant luminescent green was picking his nose and assessing the booty at a squinting arm’s length. In orange with a white sash, the next poked his ear, fidgeted with his hair, adjusted his balls. The next, rather drab in brown, was quite obviously snoozing, but actively so, readjusting to new discomfort every few seconds. Opposite was a man in salmon pink with a blue and gold samping tekat. He was also asleep, his head nodding to the side only to be corrected to straight every few seconds. There was a child, perched on his plastic chair, his legs too short to reach the ground, his dangling designer label patent shoes shining almost as fiercely as the crimson satin of his suit. No-one was talking. It was as if conversation was publicly banned, rendered inappropriate, suppressed by  the weight of the occasion.

 

And then a penny dropped. Ted realised the obvious. There were two groups of men, two squares of plastic chairs, two classes of invitation. The headgear nearby was all black. In the second group, the one where Haji was currently doing his rounds, white predominated above the neck. He, the expatriate, the non-believer, he was in with the second class citizens, the non-hajis.

 

Sylvie had noticed other women giving money. She asked her new friend and neighbour how much would be expected, and received a non-committal answer. She opened her handbag and extracted ten dollars from her wallet. Zubaidah’s mother saw this and reached across her daughter, wordlessly indicating that Sylvie should put away her money, which she did, more quickly than she had taken it out. She seemed to be trying to say that nothing would be expected from the whites, the orang puteh. When the collecting groups reached her, however, she quickly retrieved the note and placed it in the opened palms of the bride’s mother, surfaces intricately marbled with henna applied for the occasion. The ample lady passed Sylvie’s donation back to a member of her entourage, obviously an employed civil servant, used to bureaucracy and specially chosen to keep the accounts. The figure was duly noted in a personal organiser as the note itself was passed to a third woman who stuffed it into a bag.

 

The greeting that had accompanied Sylvie’s ten dollars had been a perfunctory smile and a handshake. Zubaidah’s fifty dollars evoked a good two minutes of apparently intimate chat, the friendly handshake held throughout. Sylvie was tempted to make an increased offer, but let the matter pass. It was Zubaidah who spoke next, however. She spoke directly to Sylvia, in a tone that seemed to assume friendship, but her manner and content were both surprising, even vaguely abrasive.

 

“I hope these people get on with it. We have to go to another wedding today – much grander than this.” Zubaidah’s lower lip protruded just a little as she quickly mimicked a scan of the scene before them. “The people here are nothing special,” she whispered, as she craned her neck to get a better view of the food on offer. “The people this evening are much better connected. It will be a better class of event.”

 

Sylvie considered a response, wondering if the comment referred to social status or wealth. She had just decided that they were the same thing, when she became suddenly conscious of the fact that her skirt did not cover her lower legs.

 

They had been sitting under the shade for an hour and a half when the call to prayer finally rang out. There were loudspeakers at each corner of the awning’s frame and, with all monies counted, the moment had arrived when proceedings could process. A young boy inserted a double checked disc into the player and fiddled to comic effect with the volume at the start of the familiar calls. Ted knew not to smile. Sylvie was surprised at how many of the nearby women giggled. But when a collective wipe of the face signalled that all was done, there was a distinct lightening of feel. Glasses of Coca Cola and mineral water were poured and distributed while fast-moving, officious youngsters lifted cling-film covers from the trays of food. Plastic plates, plastic spoons and paper serviettes appeared and were distributed with fawning decorum and precision to the guests who, after a pause just long enough to be noticed, rose to take their helpings of food. Everyone knew the beef rendang would be finished before even half of the guests had reached the table. There was some light conversation, but by and large this time was devoted to eating. Leftovers, chicken bones and licked spoons were discarded directly into black plastic sacks that the organising youngsters placed beneath the central tables, some of the guests merely placing their debris in the vicinity of the receptacle in an effort to keep their fingers clean. And immediately people started to leave. “So that is that,” Ted thought as he sifted through the mixed vegetables in search of a few more prawns.

 

Over half of the guests had already left when Haji and his wife approached Zubaidah and her mother. Despite her earlier dismissal of the quality of the food on offer, Zubaidah had taken a helping proportionate to her bulk. She had struggled to control the deformation of the thin plastic plate with one hand whilst the other dug in with the spoon, and was still eating, rather than already on her way when the clearly unexpected invitation came. She was in fact in the middle of explaining to Sylvie exactly where in Greater Manchester she had lived as a student when the bride’s mother laid her hand on the fleshiness of the upper arm in an unspoken invitation to stand. Thus Sylvie was adjudged to be part of the group and, without a word being spoken, the three women, Zubaidah, her mother and a tag-along Sylvie were led towards the house. As they passed the edge of the men’s area, Haji gave Ted a tap on the shoulder and invited him to join them.

 

“How did you get on?” he asked, finding new relief in his wife’s proximity.

 

“I seem to have made a friend,” she answered, nodding towards Zubaidah’s bulk.

 

“You know, that is what’s so wonderful about Nora,” he said incongruously, after a short pause. “So many of the women here become enormous. Nora is so slim and sylph-like. And you know she’s an athlete as well?”

 

“Ted, I’ve only met her a couple of times in the office,” Sylvie replied. “You work with her every day. I don’t know her.” After a short pause at the lower step of the house’s grand, arcaded, classical portico she added, “Given what seems to happen in marriages around here, it’s possible that the women get fat deliberately. The layers might provide a bit of much needed distance from their husbands.”

 

“Or it sends them elsewhere…”

 

“Same thing. That’s exactly what I meant.”

 

Haji spoke a few words, all in Malay, before turning and leading his wife by the hand into the house. “He said he is taking us to see the bride. The groom is due to arrive in a few minutes. I think we are getting privileged treatment.” Zubaidah’s words were meant only for Sylvie’s ears, but they were loud enough for everyone to hear.

 

After the sunlit outside, the interior seemed momentarily dark, but Sylvie’s eyes still took in all they saw. The room was already quite full, with everyone ignoring the seats, preferring to stand in deference.

 

It wasn’t the opulence alone that struck her; it was how opulence was layered on opulence in, at least to her eyes, apparently random overstatement. It wasn’t enough for the curtains to be of heavy brocade with long gilt tassels. Their brilliant pink also needed a thick, heavy, yellow satin border. And the room was carpeted – brilliant purple with red and white floral Chinese serpents strewn on top. The mock Louis Quinze Indonesian copy of indeterminate Italian Baroque inspiration furniture had so many gilded scrolls that it looked like a library in a flower shop, the vast blooms of its upholstery figured almost to three full dimensions.

 

But it was the dais and its occupant that rendered Sylvie breathless. Through the sliding doors into the living room they went, and there beneath a vast, gathered, canopied, yellow curtain were set two even more ornate chairs. And everything was edged with attached bouquets of expensive blooms, so perfect that initially Sylvie took them to be artificial. But they were real. Flowers that cost more than a dollar a stalk were apparently cultivated here. There were vast bouquets set in pedestalled vases, one central, two others to the sides. And there, in the right hand chair sat Nora, whom Ted did not recognise. She was probably smiling, but quite motionless, her eyes perhaps a little open, perhaps closed. Her small hands gripped a bouquet of their own, the hands themselves presenting a solid henna-brown ribbon around the stems. Nora’s dress was of indeterminate design, there being so much of it that it was impossible to assess its construction. The veil was white, trimmed with gold and worn like a grand tudong, not covering the face. A gentle, perhaps fixed smile played at the corners of her mouth.

 

Cameras were produced. “That is one heap of work,” said Ted. Sylvie did not know whether he meant the dress, the dais, the drapes, the flowers or even the bride, but she sought no clarification, since her husband’s comment applied to them all. A teenager dressed in a bright orange suit appeared and spoke with Nora’s father, who immediately but politely ushered his invited guests into a space he negotiated with those to the left of the platform.

 

Sylvie and Ted turned to watch as Haji left the room. Almost immediately he reappeared, framed in the aperture of the sliding doors, now accompanied by a turbaned young man in cream satin who looked like he might recently have been spirited from an Aladdin’s lamp. He wore no samping, only a gold cummerbund to secure the voluminous long jacket. Prominent, but held almost apologetically before him, was his dagger, which he slowly drew. A Malay kris, a slender wave-like blade beneath an angled guard, reflected the camera flashes, all of which seemed to hit at the same time. And then the dagger was sheathed, with a gentle but assertive push. There was a gentle ripple of ostentatiously polite applause.

 

“It is symbolic”, whispered Zubaidah in Sylvie’s ear. “It is penis and vagina,” she continued, choosing not to notice Sylvie’s reaction.

 

As the groom advanced across the room to claim his bride, Sylvie noticed only the black incongruity of his lace-up shoes. She had expected to find pointed sandals, perhaps embroidered, with a rhinestone trim. Not once did Nora’s eyes lift from their indeterminate focus, even as he took his appointed seat on the dais next to her, his new conquest. Cameras again flashed as he held his sheathed dagger upright on his thigh.

 

When they stood, stood together for more pictures. It took a minute or so for the problem to register. Ted did not notice at first, but then, when the couple began to move, merely to shuffle from side to side to acknowledge the angle of the cameras, he was aware of something unfamiliar about the girl with whom he wad worked so closely for six months. It was Sylvia who put words to his thoughts, however, when she turned to whisper, “I thought you said she was an athlete? She looks crippled. She can barely walk.”

 

Ted looked at her, confused. “She had a couple of days off work, but we thought that was just to prepare for the wedding. I hope she’s not ill, or had an accident…”

 

The couple then turned to the right of the room. The entourage that had followed the new husband’s entrance was assembled there, and the battery of photographic artillery was charged. And, sure enough, now he noticed that when Nora moved, her feet took only the slightest of steps, while her expression, though proud and content, displayed clear discomfort.

 

For ten minutes the couple paraded around their dais while albums of photographs were processed. Nora’s shuffling gait became more pronounced the further she moved. Ted suggested he might try to ask her if she was feeling all right, but Sylvie gave him one of her looks, a glance he knew to mean he was again being impossibly stupid.

 

“I think it’s time we left,” said Sylvie.

 

“I agree,” replied a suitably controlled Ted who, in the same instant, set off towards Haji to shake hands. Ted was now the initiator and his assertion of Australian manner provoked a little comment, some banter and a few smiles, as thanks and other pleasantries were exchanged. He then took Sylvie’s arm and headed for the door.

 

“I will go as well,” said Zubaidah directly to Sylvia as she passed. “We will be late already,” she continued, grabbing her mother’s bony forearm with some force. The four walked from the room and back outside maintaining the group identity within which they had entered.

 

At the base of the steps, breathing refreshment after the clammy confinement of the interior, Sylvie turned to Zubaidah to ask her double question, her motivation mere concern for her husband’s colleague. “Do you know Nora well? She could hardly move. Has she had an accident?”

 

“It’s us young women,” Zubaidah answered, with definite Lancastrian vowels enhancing the non-sequitur. “We can be a problem. She is married now. There has to be blood. It’s part of the contract.”

 

Sylvie looked at her again, rendered speechless by her earthy directness.

 

Zubaidah sensed confusion as she steered her mother towards her car. She paused and faced her new friend. “You Westerners do not understand our traditions,” she said. “You live lives with no duty because you have no culture of your own. Nora has made sure that there will be blood. She loves her husband. Her new life must start today. So out with the old life and in with the new. She has made sure there will be blood tonight.” And with that she again grasped her mother’s frail but heavily jewelled forearm in a manacle grip and set off towards the parked cars.

 

The last of the guests were still under the awnings. The ceremony complete, their duty of attendance and witness done, the previously sombre faces now smiled, men and women mixed a little and there was some relaxation. A duty was done. A new world was glimpsed.