scholarly manner. In pictures from the newspaper archive in the Public Library, he appears a small, neat-looking man, often holding a briefcase and a hat. He is even said to have begun translating Homer’s Odyssey into Malay. His word, in any event, carried much influence.
There was also the matter of No. 2’s condition. Johnny had managed to stab him in the fleshy part of the thigh, in exactly the place where the artery is at its thickest. The blood loss was immense. It was reported in court that the two men were found nearly lifeless, writhing feebly as if swimming in a shallow pool of blood. For a month after the stabbing, No. 2 remained in the General Hospital in Ipoh. Though he was for some days on the brink of death, he improved steadily. Doctors praised his bravery and admired his “buffalo-like” constitution, and his progress was such that, by the time of the hearing, he was able to walk, albeit gingerly. The familiar rosy-pinkness of his complexion was by this time fully restored to his cheeks.
Thus the case against Johnny was halfhearted, the lawyers becoming increasingly bored as the days wore on. In the face of Mr. Gopalan’s persuasiveness, the magistrate decided that it was sufficient that Johnny received ten lashes of the rotan, “to teach boys like you to know and respect your position in society.” He was cleared of all charges.
What no one knew at the time was that gangrene or septicemia or some other mysterious infection had worked its way into No. 2’s blood, unnoticed by the doctors who had tended to him. He collapsed, was rushed to hospital, but again made a near-miraculous recovery. Once more, doctors marvelled at his God-given strength, and when he collapsed a second time they knew he would pull through—and he did. Month after month, this continued, until finally No. 2 died, exactly a year and a week after first being stabbed by Johnny.
The coroner had no choice but to record a “death by natural causes” verdict.
I do not believe that Johnny would have been saddened by the news of No. 2’s death. I believe, in fact, that it was this first killing which hardened in him a certain resolve. Now he was a killer but he did not feel bad. He knew, for the first time in his life, the sensation which was to become familiar to him later in his life, that powerful feeling of committing a crime and then escaping its consequences. It was this first incident which set him on the path to becoming the monster he ultimately turned into.
IT WAS MANY YEARS before he could find work easily. Ordinary people were fearful of a person such as Johnny. He might not have been a criminal in the eyes of the law, but the law didn’t understand human nature. The law couldn’t always tell good from evil, people said. For a long time Johnny moved from town to town, village to village, plantation to plantation, never knowing how long he would stay or what he would do next. Without the kindness of strangers he would surely have perished. It was inevitable that he would experience his first real contact with Communists during this period of his life. The Valley was, during this time, teeming with them—guerillas, sympathisers, political activists. An ill-humoured youth full of hatred (for the British, for the police, for life), Johnny was perfect Communist material. Of the many journeyman jobs he was given during these years, I’m certain that all but a handful were Communist-inspired in some form or another. This wasn’t surprising, given that every other shopkeeper, farmer, or rubber-tapper was a Communist. These people offered Johnny more than an ideology; they offered a safe place to sleep, simple food, and a little money. That was all he cared for at that point in time.
5. Johnny and the Tiger
I LIKE TO THINK of those years which Johnny spent wandering from job to lousy job as his “lost” years, the years which became erased from his life, the years during which he vanished into the countryside.