Kembali: Return Of The Mystic by Jan Taki

Author:Jan Taki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Original Writing

Chapter Nineteen

Pak Samad just walked through the dark curtain, with me following close behind. We emerged into the bright sunshine, not far from the Tapah Road Station. The two of us walked beside the track, an old man dressed in white and wearing one black shoe on his right foot and a white one on the other, closely followed by me, a dishevelled youth with ruffled hair and mud-stained trousers and shoes. We must have looked a comical pair.

“Ah, Si Jan, we must get some money,” Pak Samad said, stopping beside a nearby bush.

“Money? Where from, Pak?” I asked.

“Here,” he said as he plucked at a few leaves from a wild cinnamon tree. “Red, ten dollars; green, five dollars. No need for the blue.” He smiled as he stuffed them into his trouser pocket.

The Indian station master wasn’t too happy to see me again, and examined Pak Samad with some curiosity if not suspicion.

“Ah, two tickets, one for Tampin, please, and one straight to Singapore,” Pak announced.

“Ada duit tak?—Have you the money?” asked the Indian fellow.

“Ada, banyak oh!—Yes, and plenty too,” Pak Samad said pulling out a stash of banknotes from his pocket. A bundle of red ten dollar and green five dollar bills. They were just leaves before. Pak Samad looked at me and smiled. He counted the correct amount and handed them over to the still suspicious Indian station master, who then grudgingly clipped the two tickets and pushed them over the counter.

There was no one else waiting for the train, so the two of us just sat on the bench on the platform and enjoyed the sunset. Pak Samad reached into his folded umbrella and pulled out two curry puffs and two pears. “One each,” he said. “They are quite juicy, these pears, straight from the fruit shop in Ipoh.”

I could feel the cold on the fruit.

“It came from a fridge?”

“Yah, and the curry puffs came from Anson.”

“How can you take them, just like that, without paying?” I asked, with some doubt as to whether I should eat something obtained illegally.

“No, they are not illegally got,” he said, as though reading my thoughts. They are all paybacks. The shopkeeper in Ipoh had underpaid the pear dealer by telling him a lie, and the curry puff seller in Anson had overcharged his customer. We Mystics just make things even, we level the playing field.”

“What about our tickets?” I whispered.

“Don’t worry, we only travel in third class, and there are more than enough empty seats on the approaching train. We don’t ask for much, just a little space in this world. Is that so hard to find? Just a little space, just a little space,” he repeated and stood up. “The Indian will forget he ever saw us and will only wonder why he has so many leaves in his drawer the next day.”

The train arrived from the North a few moments later. Three passengers got off and we got on. After a few minutes, a whistle sounded and the Indian station master waved us on.

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