In the Line of Work

At nine in the morning, I was busy in the medical centre when someone from down the slope called out, 'Haishan, Haishan!'

Even without looking up, I could tell it was Lim Kuan-I knew his gruff voice well. But why so urgent?

I quickly looked in that direction, and there he was on a ridge of earth, about thirty metres down a steep slope, left hand grasping a slim tree trunk, right hand raised high and waving at me.

I half-leapt half-ran to him. He was breathing hard, his short, plump body trembling, sweat beading on his forehead. He met my gaze, eyes apologetic.

'What's going on? Where's your metal leg?' I asked, glancing down.

'Look.' He pulled up his trousers so I could see his truncated calf, like a withered branch stripped of its bark, dangling in the air, the stump scraped red, raw and bloody.

'Aiyah!' I exclaimed. 'Quick, I'll carry you up and staunch the bleeding.' As I spoke, I knelt in front of him.

He climbed onto my back and wrapped his arms around my chest. 'I was trying to hop up here on my own. It's all swollen-that makes my stomach churn.'

'How did you hurt yourself this badly?'

'I was engraving a steel fankok, but a word wasn't clear in the original, so I went to look it up in the dictionary. Forgot my leg was gone. Just stepped and ended up on the ground.'

'Why such a rush?'

'I keep feeling as if my leg is still there.' I was gently dabbing a clump of cotton wool on his wound. Curiously, he asked, 'Hey, where your finger is right now, I feel as if my toes are still moving. Why is that?'

'Why? Heh heh,' chuckled Huang, a medic who'd overheard our conversation. 'You want to set forth again, you old devil. It's got you so confused, even your stump is trying to sprout a new leg.'

That sent the comrades around us into gales of laughter. 'What's so funny?' said Lim Kuan, all worked up. 'I'm serious.'

'Who says we aren't serious?' retorted Huang, who teased Lim Kuan rather frequently. Still grinning, he added, 'Doesn't everyone know that our Ling Guang is the front scout of our trekking team?' He warbled, 'Warrior hearts must turn south in battle.'

'That's where I was deployed! Duty called. When they say set out, we set out. When they say stay, we stay. No arguments.' Lim Kuan sounded serious, raising his voice to cut through the laughter, almost bellowing. I was wearing a surgical mask, but a moment ago had been yukking it up with everyone else. Hearing Lim Kuan's words, I hastily sobered up, reminding myself not to join in the joking so easily-what if I accidentally hurt the feelings of a comrade? Particularly Lim Kuan, my childhood friend who'd only just recovered from his injury, only just started making strides in his new position.

*

Lim Kuan and I had been childhood playmates. We were both Teochew, like everyone else in our village. I'd heard a few sections of our unit had a lot of Teochews, so everyone could speak their own language regularly. Where we were, though, us Teochews were a minority. He and I only got to exchange occasional words in our language. Most of the time we spoke Mandarin, but neither of us could quite get rid of our accents. At the welcome gathering on our first evening, Lim Kuan made a speech, but as soon as he opened his mouth, a ripple of laughter went through the crowd. He'd wanted to say, 'Thanks to the Party and our comrades, for this get-together'-but 'Party' came out as 'patty', and 'get-together' more like 'gag-togagger'! They nicknamed him Ling Guang, deliberately mangling his name.

He and I joined the Underground around the same time. We'd just graduated from middle school, and the Organisation put him in comms, which meant he was always running around. As for me, I was stuck at home rearing my family's pigs, so the task they gave me was studying traditional Chinese medicine. We embarked on our new lives, and yes, my life did change, but not all that much. A couple of years went by, and I was still me, the same well-behaved schoolboy.

It wasn't like that with Lim Kuan. Each time he came back from the outside world, he was noticeably different-he dressed more fashionably, wore his hair long, started growing a beard, took up smoking, and even his way of talking got coarser. One time, he came to visit me while I was out. I came home to find a startling figure in my house: yellow-and-red batik shirt, green thirty-inch flared trousers, unruly hair, straggly beard, thick-rimmed glasses, smoke trailing from his cigarette. Taken aback, I blurted out, 'Who are you looking for, sir?'

He turned around, whipped off his glasses, glared at me sternly-and couldn't stop himself bursting into laughter.

We both knew that, given the circumstances, his get-up was in the line of work. How else could he get past all the inquisitive spying eyes on every street corner? If I'd had to transform myself so thoroughly, I'd surely have felt ill at ease, rather than taking to it as easily as he had. Back then, I said to him, 'I take my hat off to you.'

'What for?

'You're a completely different person!'

'You think this doesn't bother me?' He jumped to his feet, gesturing vigorously with his right hand, scattering cigarette ash across the floor. 'You know, my ba has just been glowering at me, not saying a word. Then, just now, he stuffed two dollars into my hand, pointed at my hair, and yelled, "I didn't raise you to be a hooligan. Ten years of school was wasted on you!" Then he screamed at Ma-said all that studying had turned me into a pig.'

I'd never heard him mention any of this. His ba, Uncle Seng, was one of the most steadfast elders in our village. I'd never have expected him to lose his temper like this.

'How could I explain this to him? Who would believe this is in the line of work?' he muttered to himself. Then, with a shake of his head, 'Forget it.' With that, he settled back into his chair, hoisted his thigh, turned to one side, and raised the cigarette butt once more to his mouth, squinting as he drew hard on it. Wisps of white smoke seeped from the corners of his mouth, as if he were expelling all the sorrow buried in his heart.

This problem wasn't solved until the Organisation activated us. This was in 1973, by which time I'd been studying traditional medicine for several years-finally, I would be able to put it to use. Meanwhile, Lim Kuan had been working day and night to bring on a new batch of guerrillas. We both jumped for joy when we got the summons.

The night before we left, he took me to say farewell to Uncle Seng. He was afraid that if he went alone, the old man wouldn't believe him, and would try to stop him, assuming Lim Kuan was up to no good. Unexpectedly, when he'd heard what we had to say, Uncle Seng lowered his head and was silent, leaving us anxious. Finally, he looked up and took hold of his son's arm. 'Zo ni' (Teochew: 'why') 'didn't you say something sooner?' With that, he insisted on dragging us into the village for a meal.

We'd been to the Teochew fried kway teow stall beneath the banyan tree countless times, but never feeling the way we did, our bellies full of words we didn't know how to express. The old man ate a couple of mouthfuls then set down his chopsticks and squinted at us through his glasses, first at me then at Lim Kuan, as if meeting us for the first time.

We were almost done eating when he finally spoke. 'I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't miss you. You raise a child all these years, then he leaves, and you don't see him anymore-' His breathing got heavier, his chest rising and falling. 'You chose your own road. I can't say you're doing the wrong thing, serving the People. Which family hasn't suffered in our New Village? The "state of emergency" and May thirteenth. Our lives are cheap as dogs and pigs. Just one thing: If you're going to do it, then do it properly. No changing your mind, no going back and forth.' His eyes flashed at Lim Kuan, holding both encouragement and a warning. 'If you dare to turn around, just you watch-I'll break your legs in two!'

Once we were inside, the old man sent a letter by messenger, and stuck a hundred ringgit inside. Lim Kuan showed me the letter, just a few lines long. As far as I can remember, it went: 'Your old ba is doing just fine in every way, don't worry about me. When you're out there you have to give it your all, no shortcuts, stay focussed. Make sure you get on well with everyone. When one of you has a problem, the rest will jump in to help.' The old man loved his son so. If he could see Lim Kuan today, one leg sacrificed to the Revolution, how it would break his heart.

*

I saw with my own eyes the moment Lim Kuan lost his leg, and I helped him with my own hands. There were so many long, sleepless nights when I helped him get through his pain.

Right after we joined up, we went through three months of basic training. I was deployed to the medical corps, while Lim Kuan stayed with his old expertise, communications. Of course, this meant something completely different in the rainforest than it had in the outside world. Out there he'd had the two wheels of his bicycle, but in here there were only his two legs; out there he'd dressed casually, in here he was in full battle gear with a rucksack that reached above his head; out there he'd raced down streets and alleys, in here he forged through an ocean of trees. Yet no matter what, for the sake of...