The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng Read Free Book Online Page B

first.’
    He did not remove his shoes before going inside, and I followed his example. The walls in the hallway were painted white, the yellow wood floorboards buttered by the evening sun through the windows. In the living room, a row of paintings on a wall caught my attention, and I went in for a closer look. They were scenes of a mountainous landscape, barren and stretching to the horizon. ‘Thomas Baines. And those lithographs there of the fever trees – they’re Pierneef,’
    Magnus said, looking pleased at my interest. ‘From the Cape.’
    A reflection spilled into the frame; I turned around to face a Chinese woman in her late forties, her greying hair pulled back into a bun. ‘My Lao Puo , Emily,’ Magnus said, giving his wife a kiss on her cheek.
    ‘We’re so happy you’re here, Yun Ling,’ she said. A loose beige skirt softened the lines of her thin figure, and a red cardigan was caped over her shoulders.
    ‘Where’s Frederik?’ Magnus said.
    ‘Don’t know. Probably in his bungalow,’ Emily said. ‘Our guest looks tired, Lao Kung .
    It’s been a long day for her. Stop showing off your house and take her to her room. I’m off to the clinic – Muthu’s wife was bitten by a snake.’
    ‘Have you called Dr Yeoh?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘Of course- lah . He’s on his way. Yun Ling, we’ll talk later?’ She nodded to me and left us.
    Magnus led me down the hallway. ‘Frederik’s your son?’ I asked; I could not recall having heard anything about him.
    ‘My nephew. He’s a captain in the Rhodesian African Rifles.’
    The house was filled with reminders of Magnus’s homeland – ochre-coloured rugs woven by some African tribe, porcupine quills sticking out of a crystal vase, a two-foot-long bronze sculpture of a leopard in pursuit of an unseen prey. We passed a little room in the eastern wing at the back of the house, not much larger than a linen closet. A radio set took up half of a narrow table. ‘That’s how we stay in touch with the other farms. We got them after the CTs cut down our phone lines too many times for our liking.’
    My room was the last one in the passageway. The walls – and even the Bakelite switches – were painted white, and for a few seconds I thought I was back in the Ipoh General Hospital again. On a table stood a vase of flowers I had never seen in the tropics before, creamy white and trumpet-shaped. I rubbed my wrist against one of the flowers; it had the texture of velvet. ‘What are these?’
    ‘Arum lilies. I had bulbs sent over from the Cape,’ Magnus said. ‘They grow well here.’
    He set my bag down by a teak cupboard and said, ‘How’s your mother? Any improvements?’
    ‘She’s lost in her own world. Completely. She doesn’t even ask me about Yun Hong anymore.’ I was glad in a way, but I did not tell him that.
    ‘You should have come here to recuperate, after the war.’
    ‘I was waiting for a reply from the university.’
    ‘But to work for the War Crimes Tribunal – after what had happened to you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m surprised your father allowed it.’
    ‘It was only for three months.’ I stopped, then said, ‘He had heard no news of me or Yun Hong all through the war. He didn’t know what to make of me when he saw me. I was a ghost to him.’
    It was the only time in my life that I had seen my father cry. He had aged so much. But then, I suppose, so had I. My parents had left Penang and moved to Kuala Lumpur. In the new house he took me upstairs to my mother’s room, walking with a limp that he had never had before the war. My mother had not recognised me, and she had turned her back to me. After a few days she remembered I was her daughter, but each time she saw me she began asking about Yun Hong – where she was, when she was coming home, why she had not returned yet. After a while I began to dread visiting her.
    ‘It was better for me to be out of the house, to keep myself occupied,’ I said. ‘He didn’t say it,