State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang

Author:Jeremy Tiang [Tiang, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811700989
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2018-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

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One of the other girls at the boarding house was happy to lend her a suitcase. “Just take care of it, would you? It’s a good one: Peter Jones.” Revathi smiled and said of course she would, the tropics could be hard on luggage but she’d keep it away from monsoons and so forth.

“And send us a postcard, if they have those where

you’re going.”

“There are postcards in Malaysia, Lucy. It’s not a war zone.”

“Isn’t that why your parents left?”

“It was rough for a while. It’s not like that now.”

Lucy still looked concerned. She was a typist, and as far as Revathi could tell, hadn’t left West London many times in her life. “There was a chap on World This Weekend I just heard, said he wiped out a whole village. Not just him, a whole battalion of them.”

“A battalion is five hundred soldiers.”

“Oh, it sounded like less than that. One of those smaller ones. A company?”

“Platoon. That’s the story I’m covering. But it was a couple of decades ago. During the Emergency.”

“So why’s it all coming up now? Hardly news.”

“People are only now coming forward to say what really happened, so we have to look into it.”

“Is it true? That they killed a whole village and had to lie about it?”

“It wasn’t the whole village, just the men, and I don’t know what’s true yet, that’s what I’m going to find out.”

“Just seems so unlikely. All of them got together and lied about what they’d done, and then suddenly after twenty years they decide to come clean?”

“It happens. Guilty consciences. Look at My Lai.”

“You think this is like My Lai? But that’s huge. That’s an enormous story. That makes sense, they wouldn’t fly you out all the way there for anything less.”

“One step at a time. I’ve got to come back in one piece first.” Then, seeing her friend’s eyes widen, “I was joking! It’s perfectly safe, but after all I might not find anything worth writing about, or stuff it up some other way, you never know, and they’ll never send me anywhere again.”

“At least you’ll get to go. Even if it’s just this one time, you still have something to tell your grandchildren. And you have a hunch, don’t you? You’re following it into the jungle, all intrepid? If you break this story, this could be the making of you!”

Revathi blinked, suspecting sarcasm, but Lucy’s eyes actually were sparkling. Well, all right, she had a point, if this went well she would indeed be in for a different beat, something more challenging. There weren’t many opportunities to get ahead. Plenty of people thought she should be grateful to be where she was, plenty more thought she shouldn’t be there at all. She hadn’t been to the right schools, wasn’t a member of any of the right clubs, her parents spoke with an accent—and that was before you got on to the colour of her skin, or her being a woman.

She shook her head. Be a big girl, stop blubbing that you’ve been lonely.

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