The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds (The Malayan Series) by Selina Siak Chin Yoke

Author:Selina Siak Chin Yoke [Siak Chin Yoke, Selina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503939349
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2016-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

27

Ten days before my daughter Hui Fang’s wedding, I went to all our friends and relatives to distribute invitations. I must have been unusually flustered. Money would have been on my mind, since a rickshaw had to be hired by the hour, and I had forty houses to visit. I exchanged the minimum of greetings on each visit before taking out the pink handkerchief from my betel box. The single betel leaf that I set down on the hallway table, tied with fine red thread, would invariably elicit squeals of delight. ‘Ahh . . . congratulations!’ A stream of questions would follow: ‘Which daughter? Who’s the groom?’ Even though I spent no more than a few minutes on chit-chat, these visits took two days in total, and I was drained by the end.

In between the house drop-offs I sat in a rickshaw worrying about the mountain of expenses I had incurred, Yap Meng Seng’s dowry notwithstanding. I thought constantly of Mother then. It had taken twenty years for me to appreciate the anxiety she had spared me before my own wedding. Mother had been so successful that I’d had little idea of the comings and goings or how stressful it would turn out to be.

With the frenzy of activity just before the wedding ceremony itself, we shut the kueh business for three days. The kitchen on Lahat Road was taken over and became a depository of smells and a domain of increasing chaos. First to arrive were Siew Lan and a group of Nyonya friends, who made the traditional varieties of achar or pickled vegetables, which they cooled before ladling into enormous jars. The next morning – the day of the wedding feast – a couple of Hainanese master cooks I hired for the occasion descended on the house. They brought three assistants and two handcarts filled with portable stoves, viscous sauces and cleavers the like of which we had never seen, which they used to decapitate the terrified hens and quacking ducks. Knowing that space would be at a premium, I had arranged for my own servants and helpers to move to Siew Lan’s house, where they could prepare kueh for Hui Fang’s nuptial feast.

While the chefs were working, Yong Soon Soh appeared. Impeccably dressed, with a serene look on her face, she resembled a grand matriarch preparing her troops for a big event. She came towards me first, soothing me with her heaving presence before going round to each of my children. Once she had satisfied herself about our well-being, she led the bride-to-be upstairs by the hand, where they remained sequestered until the guests started arriving.

It was three in the afternoon when people began to trickle in. By five thirty everyone was there, seated at tables across both inner and outer halls of our house. I remember the happiness . . . and smiling faces . . . the warmth that suffused us all. The room was cast in an amber glow – from the elegant English lamps we had rented for the evening.

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